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What is Music Made Of?

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Pyotr Ilyich, trying to FIG-ure out the answer to this question. (Disclaimer: I am not responsible for my appalling sense of humour. It's inherited from my father.) "So tell me please, what have you all learnt in my course over the past year?" - asks our teacher of a subject called "Foundations in Opera Directing" which all conducting students must take in Third Year of the five-year conducting course at the Saint-P Con. Lectures were inconveniently held on Monday mornings, therefore naturally, students rarely ever turned up, forcing the poor old lady to often sit in the classroom waiting by herself for the entire duration of the 2-hour lecture (often she'd be sitting in the very corner of the empty classroom with the lights turned off... kinda creepy). Occasionally I would be the only student present in her lessons (although not always, I was also guilty of truanting, often loitering at the rehearsals of the St Petersburg Phi...
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Pushkin vs Tchaikovsky: The Queen of Spades

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"Your Queen is dead!" "No, your Queen is dead!" ♠  Comparing the two Queens of Spades  ♠ Whenever you go to an opera performance of Eugene Onegin in Russia, there are always those dissatisfied people in the audience who argue that the characters are all portrayed wrong, how all modern productions are wrong, and basically how everything is wrong because some things aren’t “according to Pushkin”. Once I overheard someone commenting on Andriy Zholdak’s production at the Mikhailovsky Theatre (which is one of my favourite productions of Onegin!!) how it was “historically incorrect”! What? You mean, they didn’t have front-loader washing machines and microwaves in the 1820’s? Are you serious?! If we were to only value an operatic work (and its productions) on its likeness to the original text, then Tchaikovsky would fail instantly, as the very first words we hear in the opera Eugene Onegin (where Tatiana and Olga are singing a duet together) aren’t even...
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Chords: What Are Harmonic Subdominant and Dominant Chords?

Harmonic Subdominant and Dominants are chords built by adding extra accidentals that don't exist in the original key. How to find Harmonic Subdominants of a Major Key In a Major key, chord IV , or the triad built on the fourth scale degree, sounds Major. For example in the key of  C Major , chord IV is F Major (triad - F,A,C). By turning this triad into MINOR (F,Ab,C) we get what we call a 'harmonic' subdominant. Chord II (i.e. chord built on the second scale degree) is also a subdominant, therefore can also be 'harmonic'. Let's say we take a seventh chord on the second scale degree (chord II7) in C Major. We have the notes D,F,A,C - which sounds like a minor seventh chord. If you alter the A to an Ab, you'll get a D half-diminished seventh chord, which is your harmonic II7! How to find the Harmonic Dominant of a minor Key In a minor key, chord V , or the triad built on the fifth scale degree sounds minor. For example in the key of  a minor , chor...
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