Ascending Parallel Tenths

So far we have looked at cadences as the building blocks of musical patterns. We saw that cadences were conceptualized as combination of clausulae (or single voice clauses). These usually had three notes – Ultima, Penultima, Antpenultima.

We will now look at the other main structural construct of music of the Baroque era – the scale. In the following two-voice example, the bass outlines an ascending C major scale, and the right hand adds a tenth above it (we indicate these tenths with the figure 3 since a third and an octave equal a tenth):

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *