Workshop 30 mini-test

1. What is one useful way to feel 6/4?

2. What creates the 3-against-2 relationship inside six beats?

3. What distinguishes C Dorian from C Aeolian?

4. Why is A natural important over C minor?

5. What is the role of a bass ostinato in modal music?

6. Why can a root change feel unusually significant after a long modal vamp?

7. What happens when B natural enters after a long C-minor modal section using B♭?

8. Why is rhythmic development especially important over static harmony?

9. Why should you establish an ostinato before disrupting it?

10. What is the deepest lesson of Workshop 30?

Answers

1. As two groups of three: 1-2-3 | 4-5-6, while remaining aware of all six quarter-note beats.
2. Hear/accent two groups of three against three groups of two, for example LH on 1 and 4 against RH accents on 1, 3, and 5.
3. C Dorian uses A natural (6); C Aeolian uses A♭ (♭6).
4. It is the characteristic Dorian 6/13 and gives the minor center its brighter, more open modal quality.
5. It supplies tonal center, groove, rhythmic identity, and a repeated structural framework while harmony remains relatively static.
6. The listener has heard the previous root for a long time, so the accumulated stability gives even a single bass change much greater perceptual weight.
7. B♭→B→C changes the language from modal minor toward functional dominant resolution.
8. Because chord changes are no longer creating frequent events; the player must produce development through rhythm, motif, register, articulation, dynamics, density, and silence.
9. The listener must first internalize the expected pattern; only then does omission or displacement register as an intentional variation.
10. A groove can create as much musical tension, architecture, and forward motion as a chord progression.

The central lesson of Workshop 30 is:

Harmony tells you where you are. Rhythm can tell you where the music is going.