Workshop 35 mini-test

1. What is the important difference between a dominant arrow and the upgraded idea introduced here?

2. Why does a deceptive resolution still make sense when the expected tonic does not arrive?

3. What two notes give the strongest evidence of dominant behavior?

4. Why should Em7♭5 not always automatically be labeled iiø?

5. What is the difference between a local tonic and structural tonic?

6. What are tension zones and arrival zones?

7. Why can voice leading sometimes be a better guide than Roman-numeral analysis?

8. What does a gravity map represent?

9. What are the three certainty categories suggested for harmonic analysis?

10. What is the deepest lesson of Workshop 35?

Answers

1. A dominant is not merely an arrow that must land on its expected tonic; it is an expectation generator whose resolution may be fulfilled, delayed, redirected, or deceptively avoided.
2. Because the dominant genuinely created the expectation, while smooth voice leading and contextual logic can make a different destination convincing; the surprise depends on the original expectation.
3. The dominant's 3rd and ♭7th.
4. Although m7♭5 often functions as iiø in a minor cadence, it can also behave as a passing sonority, upper structure, pivot-like chord, or voice-leading connector depending on context.
5. A local tonic temporarily becomes 1 and can receive its own cadence; a structural tonic carries greater long-range/formal importance.
6. Tension zones contain harmonies primarily creating movement/expectation; arrival zones establish comparatively stable destinations.
7. Because smooth semitone/common-tone motion may reveal how the harmony is actually behaving even when several theoretical labels are possible or textbook resolution is avoided.
8. The degree of harmonic pull/directional gravity across a passage rather than merely the chord names.
9. Certain, probable, ambiguous.
10. Advanced harmony is not about knowing a rule for every chord; it is about making good predictions, tracking the voices, and updating your interpretation when the music intentionally breaks the prediction.

The central lesson of Workshop 35 is:

Harmony becomes truly expressive when you can hear not only where it goes, but where it made you believe it was going.