When I attended music school years ago, one of the most productive homework assignments I ever had was analyzing Bach's Chorale #8 shown below. The task is to identify every chord, not including passing tones unless they define a distinct chord. Print this image and write all of the chords you can identify. Non-root chordal notes in the bass are notated as Chord/Note such as C7sus4/G.

Analyzing this music is much easier if you play the parts on a keyboard so you can actually hear the chords - even if you have to play it very slowly. You can also download THIS MP3 file (1 MB) as performed on the organ. When you click the link it opens a new tab, so come back to this page right away so you can follow along as the music plays. Then click the link at the bottom of the page to see the solution.

Note that this piece is in the key of F minor, which is four flats instead of three flats as shown. The music below was scanned from a text book, and I have no idea why it's written with a flat added to each Db manually rather than as part of the key signature.

Click HERE to see the solution.

Also see my free Music Theory video series on YouTube which teaches a complete college-level course in less than three hours.

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