The first phrase

Tempo marking

Before you start annotating you want to get familiar with the piece in question (if you aren’t already) and get an idea of the tempo and harmonic rhythm you’re imagining for it. Once you’ve made up your mind, please drag a metronome mark with the relevant note value from the Tempo palette into the first measure, double click to change the value, and press V to set it to invisible (it becomes grey). If the palettes don’t show, toggle them via F9 or View -> Palettes.

Phrase annotations

The DCML standard includes a rudimentary (because non-hierarchical) form of phrase annotations using curly brackets {}. They may stand alone or be the last character of a chord label.

Note

The term phrase, here, is not used in the Schenkerian sense. If you are coming from this tradition, maybe think of “grouping structure” instead. What our phrase labels demarcate basically corresponds to the punctuation that musicians use, for example, to know where to breathe or where to begin during a rehearsal. Cadences, in principle, occur rarely without a phrase ending but many phrases end without a cadence.

The opening bracket is put on a phrase’s first event, so the previous Beethoven example would actually start like this:

Beginning of Beethoven’s piano sonata no. 1 with phrase annotation

The closing bracket is put on the perceived structural ending of the musical phrase which is either followed by a small transitory ‘codetta’ leading up to the next phrase or coincides with the beginning of the next phrase (‘phrase interlocking’, }{). At the end of the Beethoven phrase we get:

First phrase of Beethoven’s piano sonata no. 1 annotated

Note that the } sits on beat 1, the structural ending of the sentence.

Cadence Labels

The DCML guidelines require writing more cadence labels than most theorists naturally would. The reason is that, with respect to cadences, we follow a schema-theoretic approach in the sense that formal considerations are only one of several aspects to take into account when deciding if something deserves a cadence label or not. As a consequence, if a cadence was to be repeated in the exact same or in a highly similar way, the cadence label needs to be repeated as well, even if from a formal perspective, only one instance would be considered as the “real” cadence. This guideline is meant to optimize the labels for training schema detection algorithms (rather than form analyzers).

Every time you spot a complete or attempted cadence, please mark its ultima with one of these five cadence labels, separated from the chord label by a pipe |:

Cadence labels.

Label	Cadence type	Usage
PAC	Perfect authentic cadence	Bass and upper voice closing on ^1
IAC	Imperfect authentic cadence	Bass or upper voice not closing on ^1
HC	Half cadence	Closing on V
DC	Deceptive cadence	Ultima not a tonic chord
EC	Evaded cadence	Cadential goal is cut-off from the previous progression and groups forward
PC	Plagal cadence	cadential ending with ^4 - ^1 in the bass (usually not applicable to 18th-c. music)

As becomes clear in the example above, in case the ultima is suspended, the cadence label marks the moment of its completion, whereas its structural position is marked by the } on beat 1. If cadence label and structural phrase ending co-occur, } goes last (e.g. i|PAC}). In principle, a cadence label can occur without a harmony label (as in |EC) but in reality this would be a rare exception.

Chord syntax

The remaining chord labels are achieved by simply typing the characters V65 i #viio6 i6 iio6 V(4)} V. Note how every label fully defines the chord type: Uppercase numerals express a major third, lowercase numerals a minor third, diminished and augmented triads are indicated with o and +. Inverted triads are followed by 6 or 64 (not 46), leading to these combinations:

Triads. <NA> = empty; RN = uppercase numeral; rn = lowercase numeral

Root	Type	Inversions	Chord type	Examples
RN	<NA>	<NA>, 6, 64	Major triad	I, V6, IV64
rn	<NA>	<NA>, 6, 64	Minor triad	vi, ii6, iv64
rn	o	<NA>, 6, 64	Diminished triad	viio, iio6, #ivo64
RN	+	<NA>, 6, 64	Augmented triad	III+, III+6, III+64

The same principle follows for seventh chord types. Every seventh chord is distinguished by one out of 7, 65 (not 56), 43 (not 34), or 2.

Mnemonic Hook

Arabic numbers always occur in descending order.

In addition to the types based on the four triads, there are the special symbols % for half diminished chords and M for chords with a major seventh:

Seventh chords. <NA> = empty; RN = uppercase numeral; rn = lowercase numeral

Root	Type	Inversions	Chord type	Examples
RN	<NA>	7, 65, 43, 2	Dominant seventh	V7, IV65
rn	<NA>	7, 65, 43, 2	Minor seventh	vi7, ii43
rn	o	7, 65, 43, 2	Diminished seventh	vio7, #viio2
RN	+	7, 65, 43, 2	Augmented minor seventh	V+7
rn	%	7, 65, 43, 2	Half-diminished seventh	vii%7, #vi%43
RN	M	7, 65, 43, 2	Major seventh	IVM7, IIIM65
rn	M	7, 65, 43, 2	Minor major seventh	iiiM7
RN	+M	7, 65, 43, 2	Augmented major seventh	I+M7

Annotate corelli_op01n01a.mscx up to beat 1 of m. 3

Beginning of Corelli op. 1/1 annotated

Things to note

• In thorough bass music, the figured bass and historical knowledge about how it used to be realized needs to be included in the analysis.

• Here, the labels’ display was changed to “above” after annotating. Musescore handles the label placement automatically but if you’re optically disturbed by figures and numerals mingling while you annotate, you may annotate under the third staff instead.

• At the beginning of the next phrase, the harmony does not change, so the I is not repeated; instead, { stands alone.

• Probably you remembered the fourth suspension V(4) from the Beethoven example above. More on suspensions in the next section.

• Did you put the resolving V on beat 2.5 (with figure 3) or on beat 2.75 (with E5 in Vl. II)? Both solutions have a point but the harmonic rhythm speaks for the one shown here.

Annotate gastoldi_baletto_a5_10.mscx up to beat 1 of m. 7

Beginning of Gastoldi Baletti a 5, no. 10 annotated

Things to note

• In vocal music the phrases are naturally hardwired to the lyrics. Otherwise, one would probably not interpret the ‘Fa’ in the cantus, m. 4 as beginning a new phrase.

• V/V probably came to you naturally? More on that later…

Do a complete annotation of corelli_op01n04b.mscx after deciding on its harmonic pace

What harmonic pace did you decide on and how did you decide? Did you listen to a recording or to a live rendition in your head? In case you didn’t, does listening to a recording make you want to change your mind? In the latter case, please create an alternative set of annotations in a separate file for comparison.

Once you’re settled, let’s take it to the next section to walk through some of the possibilities and their implications.