Sonata Form: The Tonal Plot
Sonata form is a tonal argument, not a set of labelled boxes. What matters is which key you are in, and how the music gets home again.
The archive
Articles
28 pieces on how music is built and how it is written down — with playable examples, tables you can check, and no filler.
Voicing a String Quartet: Registers, Doublings, Weight
The quartet is four registers, not four violins. What each instrument can sustain, where the texture muddies, and which double stops lie under the hand.
Swing Timing: What the Notation Does Not Say
Jazz notation asks for swing and leaves the ratio to the players, because the timing is tempo-dependent and a fixed written value would be wrong at most speeds.
Voice Leading: Why the Rules Exist in Four-Part Writing
Parallel fifths, tendency tones, spacing and doubling, read as solutions to one problem: keeping four lines heard as four lines.
Featured releases
