**Sonata in E Minor Sheet Music**
I wish I could say that one morning I woke up and decided, gee I’ve never written a sonata before, let’s go and write one… In reality, my need to brush up on my harmony theory in order to help out a student is what got the creative juices flowing.
My experiments in the realm of harmony continue. Currently I’m about half way through the RCM 10 Harmony book at we’ve just finished the passage on V9s and 13s. To me these chords immediately make me recall Chopin, as if they were his musical fingerprint. I thought I’d take another stab at composing something simple. My tendency is often to begin with simple intentions but end up with a piece 10 pages long and hard for anyone to play. This time I restricted myself to 16 measures. I thought I’d try to write another minuet, this time in the minor mode but by the time I tried it out at the keyboard I realized it was much more like a waltz. I almost achieved my first goal as it ended up being 21 measures. It turned out a tad more difficult than I wanted it to be but oh well. I’d say it’s more like grade 3 or probably 4 RCM. Still, I’m happy with the result. It reminds me a bit of Chopin combined with some Danny Elfman. What does it remind you of?
I’ve been working my way through the RCM Harmony books. Much of the information is review but some of it is also new; I never had this amount of time to study theory in depth when I was a busy undergrad many years ago. After all this theory I thought why not try and apply it? So I sketched up this little minuet and was pleased with myself for composing something that at least resembles one of the many minuets I’ve heard or played throughout my life written by those old dead white guys.
Welcome to the third instalment of this series. Here we are demystifying, decoding, and deconstructing just what those crazy-looking musical scores mean. If you’ve always wondered how musicians can make sense of all those hieroglyphics then you’ve come to the right place. If you’re just coming aboard then please check out the first two articles: Movement 1 and Movement 2.
Onwards to the second installment of What Does a Musical Score Mean? If you are here for the first time and wish to view the first article which starts at the very beginning you can check it out here. For everyone else we are going to build on what you’ve learned. If you need a quick review, go to What Does a Musical Score Mean? First Movement and scroll to the bottom for a summary.