Thank you very much! We are exploring different types of content for the channel and this is certainly one we’ll do more of.

Excellent, we are trying out this format, thank you so much for the feedback!

I agree. Thanks bro. This is helpful.

Thank you so much! We will be making more videos of this kind, your feedback is very helpful and greatly appreciated.

Thank you for the feedback and I am so happy the video helped you make these connections! Indeed, in tonal music chords are always moving towards one place or another, and being able to follow that movement is key to understanding how music works.

Thank you so much for the feedback!

So glad you liked it! We do have a few coming up and the Chromatic Fantasy in D minor (one of my favorites!) is one of them.

Thank you so much for the feedback!

Thank you very much for the feedback!

Thank you so much, you just made my day!:)

@@PianoLIT ☺️🙌🙌✨

That is excellent to know, thank you very much for the feedback. We will be posting more videos like this soon.

Thank you for the feedback! Yes the mic needs to improve for sure, the next analysis videos will be better.

Totally agree. I am in the same boat and super appreciate this very beginner friendly video

It's the leading tone diminished chord. Let's say we are in the key of C for the sake of simplicity. There are two chords that create a strong pull towards the C major chord. One of them is the G7 chord (G B D F). The other is the Bdim chord (B D F). Notice something similar between these chords? They have 3 notes in common with each other (B D F). B is the leading tone, which creates a strong pull towards the tonic. F is a tritone away from the root of the chord, which makes the chord sound very unstable. Because of this instability and a strong pull towards the tonic, both of these chords have the dominant function. I guess this term is a bit confusing since dominant also refers to the 5th scale degree and the 7th chord built on that scale degree. But it's also a harmonic function. It basically means a chord with the strongest pull towards the tonic. And two chords in a key pull really strongly towards the tonic, and these are the dominant chord and the leading tone diminished chord. Both of them contain the leading tone, and both of them also contain the tritone (between the 7th and 4th scale degrees). But yes, to find the _dominant,_ you count 5 up from the tonic. But the dominant isn't the only chord with the _dominant function._ The leading tone diminished chord isn't _the dominant_ - it simply has a _dominant function_ because of its strong pull towards the tonic. (And as I said, G7 and Bdim behave in a similar way because they have so many common tones.) In this case, we are talking about the leading tone chord of Dm, the C#dim7. We can compare this to A7 (the dominant of Dm), and you'll notice that they have 3 common tones. A7 = A C# E G. C#dim7 = C# E G Bb. This is why both of them resolve so strongly to Dm (both contain the leading tone).

@@MaggaraMarine Yes, I think I understand now. Thank you. So, in this case, Bach could use F7 instead of Dm, no?

The answer by @MaggaraMarine could not have been more complete! Both the V7 and the VIIdim can function as dominants because of the presence of the leading tone and the tritone in them.

@@zmba6924 Glad the dominant function of the VIIdim chord makes sense! We will make a video only about dominants soon. To answer the last question, no, an F7 chord can't substitute a Dm. The F7 is a dominant chord and leads to a Bb chord; Dm is just a minor chord that doesn't lead anywhere (like dominants do). Was that the question?

Excellent points, let’s start with the first: 1) indeed Bach would not call musical notes A, B, C, but instead Do, Re, Mi. Until today, most countries in the world use that last system. But that does not change the notes, their pitch, or relationships, so any analysis using a different naming system still maintains the same underlying fundamentals. 2) music theory was very different in Bach’s time. They understood music in terms of voice leading, counterpoint, dissonance vs consonance, rather than dominant, subdominant, etc. These terms came around in the 1800s as a new way to understand how chords relate to each other. But still, the fundamental thinking is still the same: in Bach’s musical world, a G7 moving to C translates to the dissonances in the G7 chord (specifically the note B and F) resolving as consonances in the C chord (notes C and E). That resolution is just described in a different way today, when we say, for example, “dominant (G7) resolving in the tonic (C)” instead. But Bach was certainly well aware of the theory behind how music works. Such artist wouldn’t be thinking about theory, but instead was guided by it. His musical genious is better understood as how he was able to combine harmony rules and inspiration in art that is beautiful both in structural form and sound. Hope that makes sense!

@@PianoLIT I'm very grateful for your reply, and it makes perfect sense. Sincere thanks, Guy

Thank you for the feedback! Measure 12 has G in the bass (the lowest note is the bass, regardless if it is in the right or left hand). So we have a chord with G-Bb-E-C#. Now to find the root of this chord we need to order these notes where each note is a skip (also referred to as a 3rd) above the other. As it is, G to Bb is a skip (3rd), but Bb to E isn't, so the G cannot be the root. The only correct order is C#-E-G-Bb. Now we know the C# is the root, so this is a C# chord. The type (diminished) comes from the intervals each note creates with the bass. 1) the first interval is the minor 3rd C# to E, 2) the second interval is a diminished 5th C# to G, 3) and the last interval is a diminished 7th C# to Bb. A chord with a minor 3rd and a diminished 5th is called a diminished chord; add the diminished 7th and we have a "fully" diminished chord. So this is a C# fully diminished chord.

@@PianoLIT thank you 👍

@@PianoLIT Fantastic explanation!

That is a great question! Bach did not think of this music as a sequence of notes moving from the left hand to right hand, but instead a 5-part choral where each voice is coming in one after the other (that is why we see those rests). It is a subtle difference that highlights the chordal progression of this music, rather than a melodic one.

Absolutely, that measure was added by editors to “fix” the missing measure where the bass moved from an F# to the Ab (which based on the rules of counterpoint is indeed a very strange movement), by adding the measure in the middle with the G in the bass. But Bach’s own manuscript doesn’t have this measure so I would certainly not play it.

Measure 21 comes two measures after the arrival in the C major key (after we spent a few measures in G major), so this Fmaj7 is the IV in the key of C. Another hint that this F is not a tonic chord comes from the presence of the 7th in this chord (F-A-C-E, where E is the 7th above the bass F). In this period composers would never play a tonic chord with the major 7th.

@@PianoLIT Thank you very much for your answer! My background is jazz/modern harmony, I didn't knew this fact about 7ths you said, I appreciate it.

Challenge accepted! That is a fantastic piece, will make it for a very interesting analysis.

I have been playing both the original and the Gunaud versions since I was a child in the 1950s, and he is correct here. 👍😊

@@conradinhawaii7856 WHO, specifically, is "correct here"? (Bach? Gounod? @PianoLIT?) Thanks.

Hey there! Both are correct. Bach wrote this prelude without that extra G chord. Although some musicians say the bass moving a dimished third (from F# to Ab) is a very strange move, it is exactly what Bach wrote and intended. Gounod comes along over 100 years later and uses this prelude as an accompaniment for his Ave Maria. He added the G chord between those measure to better fit his melody. So if you are playing Gounod’s Ave Maria, you should play it with that extra measure. If you are playing Bach’s prelude, you should not play it.

Absolutely, they are everywhere in his music!

@@PianoLIT Didn't expect you to respond so fast, holy cow 😅

Excellent point, and yes: the F#dim is a secondary dominant, pointing to G (which is the dominant of the home key of C), but we move not to G but to Bdim (a substitute of the dominant G). Just keep in mind that Bach would not be thinking in these terms (dominant, tonic, etc) but in figured bass and counterpoint terms instead. When using the F# in the bass, Bach indicates that the bass should move towards the G. He simply delays that movement by going to the Ab instead. The Ab being the 7th in the Bdim chord would naturally move down to the G, which is why the whole sequence sounds so natural, and we move to G in the next measure.

I agree: When you speak, your nice explanations should take the foreground and everything else should be a very soft and unobtrusive background. YOU should take the spotlight at center stage ;-)

Absolutely, we are improving our setup and your feedback is incredibly valuable and encouraging, thank you so much!

So glad to know that! This progression wasn’t invented by him, it actually around even before. The one important difference is that a jazz progression will typically add a 7th to all chords, including the tonic at the end, making it a ii7-V7-I7; and Bach would had used ii7-V7-I. He would never end a phrase with a 7th chord, something jazz composers have no problem with. In Bach’s time composers were very much concerned with balance and stability in harmony. A 7th chord is unstable (due to the dissonance of the 7th), so ending a piece with such chord would had been a very strange thing to do in his time. Such concerns were thrown out the window in the late 1800s, so jazz composers in the 20th century were more concerned with color and pure sound, rather than stability and order.

@@PianoLIT Thanks for the comment: Yes of course, he would have slapped his son, if he had ended a peace with a I maj 7.

For sure he would😅