Trying new things is easier for some people than others. Everyone should have that friend that encourages you to “go for it” and try something you haven’t done before. Sometimes that same friend is the person who has lost forty pairs of sunglasses and can’t find their car keys. Still, those of us who are afraid to make mistakes miss out on a lot of chances to try something for the first time.
The new thing here today is a podcast of Good Music Speaks. Podcasting isn’t new, but it is new to me, and it took a little technical learning to pull it off. Things have grown quite a bit in the area of home recording since I got my first cassette tape recorder as a child in the 1970’s.
Our something old is the subject matter for the first podcast, an old musical friend, sonata form. So much really good music was composed using the sonata form process, it becomes an essential concept to be familiar with when listening to classical music. “Sonata” just means “to sound or to be played”, as opposed to “Cantata” meaning “to be sung”. Sonatas are pieces of instrumental music, and Cantatas are pieces of vocal music. Sonata form is one way of working with material in instrumental music of all sorts, from piano sonatas to symphonies.
Sonata form, as I am discussing in this new podcast, is something that began to evolve in the 1700’s in the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven (among others). You will find earlier instrumental pieces by Bach or Handel that are labeled “Sonate”, but the form I am talking about doesn’t apply to those earlier works.
Follow the link below to the new Good Music Speaks Podcast page, and take a listen.
I hope you enjoy.
Next month I’ll talk about something borrowed and blue. Stay tuned.
Good Music Speaks 
I love this! It picks up where I left off in my college music appreciation classes. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing this teaching on the Sonata form. I go to chamber music festivals in the summer where I hear a lot. But as easy it is to enjoy the music it has been difficult to understand the theory behind the sonata form.
Looking forward to the next installment…as long as “borrowed and blue” has nothing to do with Smurfs!