Author: DNMain2017

Listen to The Chord Spelling Song on Bandcamp

Do Mi So 
Fa La Do 
So Ti Re Ti So Do Do Do 
Do Mi So 
Fa La Do 
So Ti Re Ti So Do 
La ... La Do Mi 
Re ... Re Fa La 
La ... La Do Mi 
Mi Si Ti 
So Ti Re 

Do Mi So 
Fa La Do 
So Ti Re Ti So Do Do Do 
Do Mi So 
Fa La Do 
So Ti Re Ti So Do 
Do ... Do Mi So 
Mi ... Mi So Ti 
La ... La Do Mi 
Re ... Re Fi La 

So Do 
So So Re Ti 
So So Do 
So So Fa Re Ti 
So So Do 
So So Fa Re Ti Si Mi 
La Do Mi 
Do Mi So Te 
Fa La Do 
So Ti Re Ti So 
Do Ti Do Ti Do Ti Do Ti Do Ti Do!

This song was written as a singalong to introduce the chords of the major scale, and their functional solfege spellings. I put the chords and solfege up on the blackboard, but ultimately had students sing it just looking at the harmonic analysis.

It has value in furthering associations with functional solfege, understanding the building blocks of harmony, and as an etude that encourages students to recognize and chunk harmonic information encoded into melodies. In a first year class, I’d have them sing it regularly as a warmup.

It focuses on simple triads in a major scale, but also hits on a few more advanced harmonies. Students don’t need to understand them fully to benefit from that previous association when you introduce them later in the curriculum.

Listen on Bandcamp to The Secondary Dominants Song

I’ve got a pocket full of keys at my disposal 
I’ve got a pocket full of keys I can use. 
And I’ve got a pocket full of secondary dominants 
I keep in stock to help unlock whatever key I choose. 

I may just stay there for a moment. 
Yeah, I may just stay there temporarily. 
And I may decide to use a secondary dominant 
To demonstrate how chords relate when I’m visiting that key. 

A V7 of IV can help me linger for a while in it’s abode 
V7 of ii gives me another way to roam. 
V7 of vi can start a journey down a long and winding road 
Till a ii becomes a V65 of V to take me home! 

I keep them with me when I travel 
I like their function and the way they sound. 
That’s why I like to use a secondary dominant 
To make it clear to chords I’m near that I’d like to hang around. 

Like V7 of V7 of V7…. Ooooo Yeah.

Written in a funky Motown groove, this song again uses puns to provide a lighthearted lesson on the function of secondary dominant chords. (Specifically, in this case, applied dominant 7s.)

The main value of the verses is to explain the way they are used. V7/V shows up repeatedly in the intro and verses, though it is not addressed directly there.

The chorus names, as they are played: V7/IV, V7/ii, V7/vi and V65/V, with the latter being demonstrated as it is altered from a ii chord. The song ends with an extended dominant series.

This song also features several iterations of a dominant chord quality without dominant function. These were deliberately included, both for musical reasons, and to spur discussion.

This is a I chord and a V in first inversion, 
Then a vi, a passing I 64, then IV. 
But this song might get boring and you’d prob’ly start ignoring me 
If I tried naming every single chord. 

But there’s one chord that’s terrific, and its function is specific, 
And it hangs around in cadences for fun. 
With solfege we can state it if we just arpeggiate it, and 
Sol-ti-re-fa is a dominant 7, which brings us home to I. 

Of course the IV chord (FA-LA-DO) can be pleasant to the ear. 
Then there’s V7/V (RE-FI-LA-DO) 
That’s a chord we’re going to learn about more next year! 

We’re back to I now, and there’s that V in first inversion, 
Just repeating what we’d played when we’d begun. 
And this path that we had charted’s going to finish what we started 
‘Cause SOL-TI-RE-FA is a dominant 7, which brings us home to… 

OH NO! That cadence was deceptive! 
It went to minor vi instead of I! 
That sort of trick can be effective 
At making things last longer when we thought that we were done! 

So here we are again and moving toward the finish, 
And I think, this time, we will not wait in vain. 
Cause I’m tired of extending it, I’m ready for the ending. 
And SOL-TI-RE-FA is a dominant 7, which brings us home again. 
Yes, SOL-TI-RE-FA is a dominant 7, which brings us home again. 
Fa-mi Sol-Sol Ti-Do. Woo!

Written in a pseudo-country style, this song is all about the function and identification of the V7 chord, but also provides a host of other contextual identifications. It discusses a variety of other harmonies, in context, both ones that are likely to have already been studied at this point in the curriculum, and ones that presage things to come (notably the V7/V – “that’s a chord we’re going to learn about more next year.” – or at least later in the semester, but it was true for my class at the time.)

As with many of my songs, it makes intentional use of humor, most notably at the surprise deceptive cadence into the bridge. There, and elsewhere, it reinforces vocabulary used in the classroom that is not necessarily related to the subject at hand.

Ultimately, though, it’s designed to introduce the V7 chord. The chorus is catchy, and has become a significant association for my students, who can easily arpeggiate the chord and describe its function. The end of the song demonstrates melodically the highlights of voice leading from V7 to I.

Second inversions are chords I adore 
I write them down with a 6 and a 4. 
These chords we encounter in four different ways… 
You can tell from the context you hear, 
From the chords that are near, 
And the movement you hear in the bass. 

The first we’ll call pedal (or stationary) 
‘Cause the bass stays the same. 
But when bass notes move stepwise 
Often passing’s the name. 
When the bass goes a leaping, arpeggiated’s what we’ll say. 
And when we come to the end of a section, my friend 
A cadential 64 can help carry the day…. 

(IV 64)... well that IV 64 was stationary, oh… 
(I 64)... a passing I 64! Passing I 64! 
(vi 64)... ain’t it great when we can arpeggiate! 
And for the next one I’m just going to savor it 
‘Cause a cadential 64 is my favorite second inversion…. 
Second inversion… 
Mmm, Second inversion…

Written in a pseudo-gospel style, this song has three verses which follow the same chord progression, which includes each of the four types of second inversion triads. The first verse gives a general setup. The second verse gives names and descriptions of each kind as the harmony is played in the accompaniment. The lyrics serve there both as an association with the harmonic content and as a mnemonic for what to listen for.

The third verse then names the chords, including a vertical roman numeral analysis. Vocabulary connections are reinforced as well, with the execution of arpeggios and stepwise motion when they are mentioned. This song teaches on multiple levels, and can be a springboard for discussion, even if the approach is not one that is used in your curriculum.

Sometimes I like to hear some German 
Sometimes I like to hear some French 
Sometimes I like to hear a nice diminished seven 
Or some other chords that I won't even mention 

The German chord resolves Le-So and Fi-So. 
The French chord is just like it, but with Re instead of Me 
But though I love these nationalities so 
Neapolitan makes my day 
Neapolitan makes my day.

In the beginning was the womb 
And you were surrounded by warmth 
and comfort 
and sustenance 
and Sound. 
Vibrations flowed to you from and through the giver of life. 
Voices and noises 
and the ever present pulse of a heartbeat. 
That engine of nourishment was your constant companion 
As cell by cell your body came to be 
And began a heartbeat of its own. 

You came to know the cadence of the two combined 
Infused by music of those pulses intertwined 
You learned the framework of a child and its mother 
To sense a smaller pulse embraced within another 
And because it was the only world you knew 
It filled you and formed you as you grew 
So melody and dance are your inheritance 
From the woman who created and incubated you 

And the central fact to which this all pertains 
Is that you were born with rhythm in your veins.

This is the opening track on my ear training album, The Well Trained Ear: Songs to strengthen aural skills.

I wrote the poem in the summer of 2017, as I was thinking of developing a more comprehensive song curriculum, and trying to explore ways of helping my students who struggled with rhythm. It was initially meant only to be performed with mother and child heartbeats created physically by the audience, as led by the performer. I used it the next semester as an exercise on my first day of class, following the poem with a funky bass line and getting people to step on 1 & 3 and clap on 2 & 4 and pointing out to them that they were moving in a meter so common we call it common time.

With the student who struggles, there is often a critical concept that they failed to understand in their early training, and for which they may have compensated adequately until higher complexity reveals the deficiency. I discovered with one student that they had truly not understood that we perceive rhythm in meters. They sought to determine how long each note in a melody was instead of listening to where it occurred within the framework.

This text was crafted in part to address that conceptual understanding, and also to provide reassurance that learning to perceive rhythm within a framework is totally natural, and not to be feared.

I deliberately crafted it so that the poem started in free verse, and then builds to a metered pulse as the heartbeats arrive. Alliteration and several varieties of internal rhyme are there to be pointed out. And it establishes context for the words “framework” and “pulse” that I will continue to use in the classroom.

I have the great honor of knowing Casey Cangelosi as a friend, colleague and neighbor. As we walked home together at the end of a teaching day this Spring, I told him about sounds I imagined accompanying this poem. A few days later, he presented me with a complete recording of a musical accompaniment that highlights and supports the text.