Tying Up Loose Ends

Here are a few more exercises, some obvious holes in the work that has been done so far.

The first is that I left out one inversion in the cycle 2/7 triad exercise, which is if you start the C major scale on root position D minor. This inversion doesn’t occur starting on C, because the chord before it would be 2nd inversion E minor, skipping the note C to get to D. (System 1)

2 other obvious ones are to go through the scale using the same inversion throughout, but using inversions other than root position. (Systems 2-3)

Here’s a neat idea: anyone who’s ever harmonized a chorale gets the idea of passing chords. A chord moves from one inversion to another of the same chord, and through the process of voiceleading another chord is created. Could this be done vertically and with arpeggiation instead of horizontally and homophonically? (System 4)

And of course, although I won’t bother rewriting everything, all of these can also be played using a ton of different nested patterns such as alternating between ascending, descending, broken, etc.

And here's a variation on yesterday's dorian lick: