BASIC HARMONY AND MUSICIANSHIP

THE MAIN MATERIALS OF MUSIC:

MELODY, RHYTHM AND HARMONY

Music is the art and science of sound using melody, rhythm, and harmony..

A melody is a series of single notes in succession that form a complete musical thought. Melodies are made up of single notes related to each other in phrases or musical ideas that form a complete musical statement; a tune. Melodies move horizontially.

Rhythm is a regular recurring movement or pattern of movement with both strong and weak beats of sound. A beat is essentially a feeling and rhythm can be said to be a recurring pattern of feelings such as your heart beat.

Harmony is a group of notes sounding at the same time forming chords that support the melody. Harmony is made up of chords and chord progressions. Harmonies move vertically.

A primary purose of harmony is to support the melody.

Let us begin with the simple melody known as LONDON BRIDGE.

Look at the melody below with the chord names in letters:

Using the letter names of the chords C and G in the song above allows you to know what chords to play and when to play them but it does not give you an understanding of why the C and the G chord are being used. In order to understand why they are being used, we need to know and find their function. Finding their function is done by naming them as numbers using Roman Numerals. The numbers tell us about their special built-in relationships between chords. This special relationship between notes and chords is often referred to as Tonal Magnetism. This text is a study of those relationships.

TONAL MAGNETISM

All the notes in a major scale are related to the keytone or the name of the scale. For example, in the C major scale, all the notes are drawn towards the note C like a tonal magnet - some more strongly than others. The strongest tone in a major scale is the keytone called the Tonic. The next strogest tone is the 5th scale degree; in this case the note G and it is called the Dominant - because it tries to dominate the key.

It might help you to think of the notes in a major scale as the planets in our solar system. All of them are drawn towards the sun - which, in this analogy, would be the Tonic. You may think of the Earth as the Dominant because, although it is the 3rd planet and not the 5th, it is the only planet in our system with abundant life.

Try play the following on a keyboard and you will hear clearly how all the tones in a major scale are drawn towards the keytone or Tonic:

REVIEWING CHORDS

All chords are built in 3rds.*

A chord is any 3 or more tones sounded at the same time.

With this as a definition, the smallest chord is made up of 3 tones - also called a Triad.

1 note = a note

2 notes = an interval

3 or more notes = a chord

A chord may be built on any tone.

For example, given the tone C to build a chord on, the notes in that chord are C, E, and G: - each a 3rd away from each other.

If we were to build a chord or triad on each note of a major scale, it would look like this:

NAMING CHORDS

Chords are named in two ways:

1. LETTERS - by the letter names of their roots (in thE following example the root is the lowest tone)

2 NUMBERS - by numbering their roots with Roman Numerals:

THE ANTECEDENT / CONSEQUENT

QUESTION / ANSWER PHRASES

Analyzing the song LONDON BRIDGE below we see that it is 8 measures long and consists of 2 four bar phrases. The 1st phrase is the Antecedent or Question phrase and the 2nd is the Consequent or Answer phrase.

THE 8 MEASURE PERIOD

Most melodies are 8 measures long and are