Harmony
Harmonizing a Melody: How to Choose the Chords
Harmonizing a melody means choosing a chord for each strong beat that contains the melody note. This worked example uses the opening of Ode to Joy in C.
Topic
Harmony
Chord function, voice leading, cadence and modulation: how tonal music moves from one place to another.
Functional harmony is a way of describing what chords do to a phrase rather than what they are in isolation. These articles move from tonics, predominants and dominants through voice leading, cadence, seventh chords and mixture, and finish with the chromatic devices — secondary dominants and modulation — that let a piece change where it stands.
Harmony
Pedal Point and Ostinato Explained: Holding and Repeating a Bass
Pedal point holds one bass note while the harmony above it changes. An ostinato repeats a short pattern. This covers the kinds of pedal, how clashes resolve, and the ground bass.
Harmony
Chromatic Mediants Explained: Major Chords a Third Away
A chromatic mediant is a triad a third from the tonic that lies outside the key. For C major the four are E♭, E, A♭ and A major, and each one shares a note with the C triad.
Harmony
Diminished and Half-Diminished Sevenths Explained
The fully diminished seventh is four notes stacked in minor thirds, and the half-diminished seventh is a diminished triad with a minor seventh. This is how each one spells and resolves in C.
Harmony
The Tonnetz Explained: Euler's Lattice and Chord Moves
The Tonnetz is a lattice of fifths and major thirds whose triangles are triads. Leonhard Euler described it in 1739, and this is how to read it.
Harmony
Chord Symbols Explained: Major, Minor, Seventh and Slash Chords
A chord symbol names the root, the quality, the extra notes and the bass. Here is how to read Cmaj7, C7, Cm7, C/E and C7b9, and the notes each one contains.
Harmony
Diatonic Chords in Major and Minor Keys Explained
Diatonic chords are the triads built on each scale degree from the key's own notes. Here are their qualities in major and minor, worked out in C and A.
Harmony
Non-Chord Tones: Passing, Neighbour, Suspension and More
A non-chord tone is a note that sounds over a chord without belonging to it. Here are the main types, how each is approached and left, and how to write them.
Harmony
Roman Numeral Analysis: How to Label a Chord Progression
Roman numerals label each chord by the scale degree of its root and its quality. Here is a step-by-step method, with I vi IV V worked in C and G.
Harmony
Suspended Chords: Sus2 and Sus4 Explained
A sus chord swaps the third of a triad for the second or fourth. Here is what Csus2 and Csus4 contain, why neither is major or minor, and how they resolve.
Harmony
Augmented Sixth Chords: Italian, French and German Types
Italian, French and German sixth chords: how each type is built, how they resolve to V, and their use in enharmonic modulation.
Harmony
The ii V I Progression in Major, Minor and Jazz Styles
Why ii V I is the backbone of tonal music: voice leading, turnarounds, minor-key forms, and the jazz reharm toolkit.
Harmony
The Neapolitan Sixth Chord: Sound, Spelling, Resolution
The flat-II chord that darkens minor keys: how the Neapolitan sixth is built, voiced, resolved, and used from Bach to Schubert.
Harmony
Harmonic Sequences and Circle Progressions That Modulate
Descending fifths, ascending 5-6 patterns, Pachelbel loops: how sequences work, when they modulate, and how to write them.
Harmony
Triads and Inversions: Root Position, Sixth, Six-Four
Root position, first and second inversion: how triad voicings shape the bass line, when to invert, and what the figures mean.
Harmony
Tritone Substitution: The subV7 Chord That Still Resolves
Replace any dominant with the dominant a tritone away: why subV7 works, how it smooths bass lines, and where jazz standards hide it.
Harmony
Borrowed Chords: Modal Mixture in Practice
Mixture borrows chords from the parallel mode. What the common borrowed chords do to a phrase, how they resolve, and where labelling fails.
Harmony
Cadences: How Phrases End in Tonal Music
Authentic, half, plagal and deceptive cadences, and the real reason a close sounds strong: what happens in the bass, the top voice and the metre.
Harmony
Figured Bass: Reading Intervals Above the Bass Line
Figures name intervals above the bass, not chords. What each shorthand means, how accidentals override the key, and what the player decides.
Harmony
Functional Harmony: Tonic, Predominant, Dominant
Tonic, predominant and dominant describe what a chord does to a phrase rather than what it is. This is how the three harmonic jobs divide the work.
Harmony
Modulation: How a Key Change Is Confirmed
A modulation is not a chromatic chord; it is a new key confirmed by cadence. The routes into one, and how to read them off the page.
Harmony
Secondary Dominants and How Tonicization Works
A secondary dominant makes any chord a temporary tonic. How to spell one, where it turns up, and what cancels the effect.
Harmony
Seventh Chords and How They Resolve in Tonal Harmony
The chordal seventh falls, the leading tone rises, and the tritone at the centre of V7 resolves by step. What each diatonic seventh chord is for.
Harmony
Voice Leading: Why the Rules Exist in Four-Part Writing
Parallel fifths, tendency tones, spacing and doubling, read as solutions to one problem: keeping four lines heard as four lines.
The ebook
Music Theory: the site as a book
The site's working library as a structured ebook: intervals, keys, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, form, tuning, orchestration and the history behind them.
- 78 pages
- PDF format
- $2.87
- By The musics.name project
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