63: Peter van Tour
HMA Podcast
How to Solfege With a Fixed Dough
There are many different ways to do solfege. Try to use a system which is as easy as possible so you don't get stuck in too much of the thinking. Is solfegeo, does it get very complicated? Do they have to sing in multiple clefs? Yes, there was a lot of clef reading involved.
I'm so delighted to talk to my guest today, Musicologist, Music Theorist, Composer and Educator, Peter van Tour!
He is the author of Counterpoint and Partimento: Methods of Teaching Composition in Late 18th century Naples 2015, The Editor of a 3 volume series entitled, "The 189 Partimenti of Nicola Sala" published 2017 and has published many peer-reviewed articles.
He earned his Phd in Musicology/Music Theory at Uppsala University, Sweden.
He is also a Moderator of a popular, fast growing Facebook Group called "The Art of Partimento" which is dedicated to the compositional school of Naples and the art of partimenti, a very rich resource for interested people.
He has an upcoming book coming out: ""The Italian Fugue: Investigated through Young Apprentices in Eighteenth-century Naples and Bologna."
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2:00 - What's the latest research on Partimento?
4:17 - Did Neapolitan students have to sing for 3 years before playing instruments?
5:08 - What type of solmization did they use?
7:15 - How difficult does Solfeggio get?
8:10 - Where do we get Solfeggio exercises?
8:48 - Is Solfeggio unaccompanied or accompanied?
9:36 - Do Neapolitan students keep singing after the 3 years?
10:43 - Differences between Southern and Northern Italian pedagogy
11:20 - Does everyone have to learn the keyboard when learning Partimento?
11:56 - Was it common for students back then to play a little keyboard, even if it wasn't their main instrument?
13:40 - Is the Neapolitan approach to Counterpoint different from Fux?
15:06 - How do the Neapolitan students navigate the rules of Counterpoint without getting bogged down?
16:33 - Cadences, Rule of the Octave, Bass Motions
19:02 - Are Cadences about Chords moving or something else?
20:21 - The 3 types of Cadences and their variations
21:42 - How do you know when to raise the 6th and 7th degrees of the melodic minor scale when using it in Partimento?
22:58 - Written Counterpoint vs Performed Counterpoint
27:08 - What's the average amount of Partimenti that would accumulate in a student's notebook?
28:06 - Is the Partimento method applicable to modern tonal music?
29:15 - The drawbacks of typical music analysis
30:09 - How early can a student begin improvising and composing using the Partimento method
31:02 - The Clef's that you should learn for Partimento
31:36 - There are no G clefs in historical Partimento manuscripts
32:10 - Peter's music pedagogical recommendations
34:10 - Is it possible to self-teach counterpoint?
35:21 - Is the Paris Conservatory tradition related to the Partimento tradition?
36:41 - How would you teach a music student from the very beginning with Partimento?
38:00 - What materials are good to start with for Partimento?
39:35 - Using Partimento towards non-partimento based compositions
40:27 - Talking about Gjerdingen's Schema
41:06 - What surprised Peter most about his Partimento research
43:34 - During the 18th century, were Italians composers famous across Europe?
44:42 - Richard Wagner and the Progressive nature of Partimento
45:58 - Beethoven and Partimento
46:39 - The modern reaction today to the recent research in Partimento
47:41 - Talking about Peter's upcoming book, The Italian Fugue.
48:56 - How good were the Italians at Fugal writing?
51:26 - Who were some famous Italian masters of the fugue?
52:06 - The School of Leo vs The School of Durante
54:39 - Did they write or improvise Fugues, or do both?
55:30 - Upcoming projects
56:22 - Mentiparti 2019 teaching
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