Scarlet & Grey
Ohio State University
School of Music


Music 824: Assignment #4 - Answers

For J.S. Bach's chorale harmonizations, extract the **harm spines and answer the following questions:

  1. What is the most common first inversion function?
    COMMAND:     extract -i '**harm' *.hrm | rid -GLId | grep 'b' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
    ANSWER:         tonic (174 instances)
  2. What are the most common seventh chords? Is root position more popular than first inversion for V7 and ii7?
    COMMAND:     extract -i '**harm' *.hrm | rid -GLId | grep '7' | sort | uniq -c
    ANSWER:         Most common sevenths: V6-5 (46) and ii6-5 (46)
    ANSWER:         First inversion is more common than root position for seventh chords
  3. What is the most common second inversion function?
    COMMAND:     extract -i '**harm' *.hrm | rid -GLId | grep 'c' | sort | uniq -c
    ANSWER:         Tonic second inversion (18 instances)
  4. Ignoring differences of inversions and sevenths, but including differences of major/minor chord qualities, what is the most common chord function?
    COMMAND:     extract -i '**harm' *.hrm | humsed 's/[b-g0-9;]//g' | rid -GLId | grep -v = | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
    ANSWER:         tonic major function (732 instances)
  5. Repeat the above question where differences between major/minor chord qualities are ignored.
    COMMAND:     extract -i '**harm' *.hrm | humsed 's/i/I/g; s/v/V/g; s/[b-g0-9;]//g' | rid -GLId | grep -v = | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
    ANSWER:         tonic function (793 instances)
  6. What is the most common chord progression in Bach's chorale harmonizations?
    COMMAND:     extract -i '**harm' *.hrm | context -n 2 -o '[=r]' | rid -GLId | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
    COMMAND:     extract -i '**harm' *.hrm | humsed 's/;//g' | context -n 2 -o '[=r]' | rid -GLId | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
    ANSWER:         V-I (161 instances)
  7. In the IV-V progression, what chord function tends to precede the IV?
    COMMAND:     extract -i '**harm' *.hrm | context -n 3 -o '[=r]' | grep ' IV V$' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
    ANSWER:         I-IV-V is the most common (6 instances)
  8. In the chorale harmonizations, cadences are conveniently marked by pauses. Identify (in order) the four most common cadences used by Bach.
    COMMAND:     extract -i '**harm' *.hrm | context -n 2 -o '[=r]' | grep ';$' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
    ANSWER:         V-I (99 times); V/V-V (32 times) V7/V-V (21 times); V7-I (12 times0