Ever wondered what gives music its depth and richness? Why sometimes a single melody sound so different when played accompanied as opposed to when it is solo? That is answered by the definition of musical harmony, which is simply the combination of two or more different pitches sounding simultaneously.
Harmony is what happens when more than one note plays at a time. While a melody is just a succession of single notes played one after another, harmony involves chords. For example, in a major triad chord, you have the root note, the third note above it, and the fifth note. Play these three notes together, and you have created harmony.
The following are some important things to know about harmony: Consonance vs. dissonance: Some note combinations sound good or stable when played together, while others create tension. Among the consonant combinations are major and minor triads, while something like a diminished seventh chord is dissonant.
Chord functions: Different chords have different functions within a key or chord progression. Stability of the tonic chord, pulling towards the dominant by the subdominant chords, which resolve back to the tonic. Knowing the functions of chords can partially explain why some chords sound like they “want” to move to another.
Melody harmonization: This would involve accompanying a melody with chords that complement its contour and rhythm. Songwriters do this by assigning chords from the key to every note in the melody. When played together, the melody and chords produce harmony for a richer, fuller sound.
Rhythm and Voicing: The rhythm with which one plays chords affects the harmony as much as the arrangement of notes within chords does. Closely-voiced chords sound denser than widely-spaced ones. Arranging complex chords into inversions changes their color.
Musical Texture: One thinks of solo piano melodies versus large orchestra sections playing together when considering harmonic texture. More notes equal a thicker texture through harmony.
Modes and Scales : Different modes or scales make various notes available for harmonization. Major and minor keys have their typical distances between all their notes which determine in their turn frequently used chords, Other scales, like pentatonic open up more possibilities.
Chord progressions: Certain harmonic cadences have become conventionalised as cadential formulae to indicate the close of a section, The perfect authentic cadaves in major key, for instance Common practice composers used this type of musical punctuation extensively.
Now, as an example of putting some simple harmonization into practice, we will consider a simple folk melody in the key of G major and add some chords to it.
The melody outline is: G, F, E, D.
We can harmonize it with a I, IV, V7 chord progression like this:
G major chord on the first G note
C major chord on the F note
D7 chord on the E note
G major chord on the D note resolves back to the I chord.
Hearing the melody with this basic chordal accompaniment creates harmonic interest and movement that the unaccompanied melody alone doesn’t have. Playing “G – C – D7 – G” in the bass provides a familiar harmonic outline of tonic-subdominant-dominant-tonic.
This is an exceedingly simple example, but it does show how taking a melody and providing it with chords from its parent key produces harmony. More advanced harmonies include jazz and pop chord substitutions, extended chords, modulation between keys, and advanced voice leading.
Some further techniques of harmony that one could explore include:
Flip through sheet music or song chord progressions to see what chords seem to be used and how they relate to the melody and key; write short melodies and harmonize them with various chord progressions to hear the effect. Learn the basics of music theory: intervals, chord qualities, chord functions, and cadences. Listen with a careful ear to how melody and harmony work together in pieces of many genres. Try inversions, suspensions, secondary dominants, and other harmonic techniques.
Comparing and contrasting harmonic approaches between styles like classical, jazz, and popular music
If we think of harmony, we can see how music might be constructed entirely differently. Melody engages us, but harmony provides the texture, tension, and resolution of the music. When we know something about simple harmony concepts, we have a greater appreciation for any style of music. Continue listening, analyzing, and experimenting—the world of harmony extends complicated things to learn.
