Music 009: Music Theory Fundamentals

Assignment 27

Teoría

Skill 1 Construct 15 major and minor 6ths; no time limit

Skill 2 Construct 15 major, minor, and diminished 7ths; no time limit

Skill 3 Identify 15 6ths and 7ths of various qualities; no time limit

Refer to the intervals Part II handout on sixths and sevenths as needed. The techniques described there are faster and more reliable than using major scales or counting steps.

Remember, one way to learn to recognize intervals is to associate them with familiar tunes. Here is a cool customizable tune-list tool for learning to hear melodic intervals.

Misterioso

“Misterioso” by Thelonious Monk, first recording (1948)

This tune is built entirely on walking 6ths. In jazz a “walking” pattern is one made of steady quarters or eighths with a rising and falling contour.

“Walkin’ in Misteriosoland” by yours truly

The Bella Voce Women’s Chorus asked me to write a jazzy arrangement of some well-known non-religious Christmasy song. I found the relationship between “Winter Wonderland” and “Misterioso” impossible to resist, so I wrote “Walkin’ in Misteriosoland”. (It’s also the pun on the walking 6ths.)

Also, I hate cell phones, I hate “Winter Wonderland”, and I hate sleigh bells, so writing this was a sort of exorcism for me. (I do not hate everything; for example, I do not hate Monk, or snow.)