Category: Arnold Schoenberg’s “Farben” Chord-Music Analysis

Please watch video above for detailed info:

Hi Guys,

Today, a look at the mighty “Farben” chord from Arnold Schoenberg’s five pieces for orchestra.

What is the “Farben” Chord?

This a C Augmented chord with a Maj7th and a 13th [or 6th].

The way that the notes are spaced/voiced creates a unique and dramatic flavour.

Below, is a quick piece of orchestration that I composed to display this.

Here, is the Farben chord voicing:

Now, let’s play this as an arpeggio outline:

This time we will extend it to two octaves.

From here, we will create a chordal picking guitar vamp from this chord voicing. [Careful, with your fingers as the intervals require a bit of a stretch]

Here, is the vamp.

Here, is another vamp idea:

RE VOICING:

Another, lovely sound that we get [thinking from the relative minor] is AmMaj7/9.

This voicing works beautifully on the guitar creating a colourful resonance:

Now, let’s play it as an arpeggio outline:

From here, we will extend this to create an ascending line:

Finally, we will make another voicing.

If we take the top part, we can create a nice lick from it. This gives a sort of modal improvised line impression.

[Side thought: Unordered 01348: s Forte number is 5-z17, in the taxonomy of Allen Forte].

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