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4.3: Harmony

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    91146
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    Melody is a collection of pitches played in succession. Harmony is a collection of pitches played at the same time. The rules and aesthetics that determine the proper use of harmony differ between cultures. For example, the ways that harmony is used within Japanese Gagaku differs from the ways that it is utilized in Western music. Some cultures do not utilize harmony as an element of music. Some examples of music that does not traditionally utilize harmony include Indonesian Gamelan, Indian Classical, Arabic and Persian, Native American, and Aboriginal Australian genres. Harmony has been utilized and developed as an element in Japanese Gagaku, Sub-Saharan African, and Western styles including European art music, and Western popular genres.

    Western harmony largely functions on a basis known as tonality. Tonality is a concept that recognizes the tonic note of a diatonic scale as the most important “home” or “central” pitch from which the music begins and ends. When considering harmony, the tonal center (tonic) is a chord built on the first scale degree. Some music shifts tonal centers within the piece. When the music shifts from one diatonic key area to another it is called a modulation. Most modulations are imperceptible to the untrained listener. Modulations between major and minor keys can sometimes be discernable to the untrained ear. In the recitative Quand je vous aimerai? from the opera Carmen there is a modulation from f minor to F Major just before the end. This sets up a modulation from F Major to d minor for the start of the aria: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera). The Habanera also modulates from d minor to D Major. These key areas dictate the notes chosen for both the melody and the harmony.

    A chord is generally defined as three or more pitches sounding simultaneously. The tonic chord is built by playing the first, third, and fifth note of the scale simultaneously. If the tonality of a piece is C major then the tonic chord contains the notes C, E, and G (See Figure 7).

    Figure 7: Tonic, Sub-dominant, and Dominants in C diatonic-major

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    Because the tonic chord is the “home chord”, in tonal music it is the central harmony. The dominant and sub-dominant chords are also very important and are built on the fifth and fourth notes of a diatonic scale.

    Major and minor diatonic chords are considered to be consonant chords. Consonance is represented by intervals or chords that sound relatively stable and free of tension. The opposite of consonance is dissonance. Dissonance is represented by intervals or chords that sound tense and unstable. Western functional harmony utilizes the principal that the music will start with consonant harmonies, move to more dissonant harmonies and in the end offer relaxation/relief by returning to consonance. The movement between consonance and dissonance provides motion to depth to the music. In tonal music (music with functional harmony) this movement happens between chords. Aesthetics that determine what is consonant and what is dissonant differ from culture to culture and from generation to generation. An interesting example of this is in traditional choral singing from Bulgaria. In this culture seconds are considered to be consonant. In contemporary American pop these intervals (and chords built using them) are considered to be dissonant.

    A defining feature of Western Art music is the development of harmony starting in the Medieval style period. In a broad sense tonal music has a peak in purely diatonic music (using notes of major and minor diatonic scales) in the Classical style period. In the Romantic period composers stretched the possibilities of tonal music by adding dramatic dissonances and far reaching harmonies to the traditional tonal foundations that were established during the previous periods. By the Twentieth century many composers believed that traditional tonality was exhausted and old-fashioned. The result of this was that the Twentieth century style period in Western Art music saw a normalization of dissonance. Much music from the period explored the possibilities of sonorities that existed outside the rules of functional harmony/tonality. This is a defining feature of this period of music. When listening to it one may be surprised by the lack of comfort (or the oddness) felt within many works. This is often a direct result of the normalization of traditional dissonances. When music denies the rules of tonality by not having a central tonality it is referred to as atonal music. Learning the musical theory behind functional harmony and atonal practice takes many “classically” trained Western musicians years of classes, lessons, practice and study to master.

    Western popular and folk genres generally utilize simple harmonies that are diatonic and functionally tonal. Most music within these genres contains a repetitive sequence of movement between several diatonic chords. This is commonly known as a chord progression. These chord progressions often contain only three or four chords. In major diatonic keys the chords of Tonic (built on scale degree 1), Sub-dominant (scale degree 4) and Dominant (scale degree 5) are often used to build songs. In vocal groups there is often one singer who leads by singing the melody while the others harmonize that melody by combining voices to sing chords. In popular bands instruments that can play chords (guitar, piano) often play the chords/harmony while singers provide the melody.

    Traditional Mexican corridos are often sung over a two-chord progression that alternates between only the tonic and dominant chords. Figure 8 shows the chords along with the lyrics of the first verse of El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez as performed by Ramón Ayala. A two-chord progression between tonic and dominant allows the musician to start and finish with consonance represented by the tonic chord and move to a more “dissonant” area represented by the dominant chord. In this piece the harmony is the chords played on the guitar while the voices are the melody. Another interesting aspect of the melody is that it is sung in harmony by two singers who sing a third apart.

    Figure 8: El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez melody with chords

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    The addition of the sub-dominant chord (IV) to the tonic and dominant expands the harmonic possibilities of a chord progression. These three chords are the harmonic foundation of many pop songs. It is interesting to note that each of these chords lies next to each other on the circle of 5ths (See figure 4). When asking guitarists what the first chords are that they learned they often reply with three adjacent chords on the circle of 5ths: (F,C,G) or (G,D,A). The tonic, dominant, and sub-dominant chords are used to build “three chord” songs. Examples of three chord songs using tonic dominant and sub-dominant can be seen by following this link:

    The blues chord progression is a specific sequence of the tonic, dominant, and sub-dominant chords that serves as the harmony for the blues genre. According to Steve Valdez in his book A History of Rock Music, 4th edition the basic blues structure was inspired by chords used in basic church hymns from Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland. African (American) slaves assimilated them into their own music and created “the blues”. In the 1910s and 1920s the blues chord progression began to codify into the twelve-bar blues progression. In this progression the tonic chord (I) is the harmonic foundation of the first four bars. It is followed by a two bar harmony of the sub-dominant (IV) chord. After returning to tonic (I) for two bars it then moves to dominant (V) for two bars and ends with two more bars of tonic (I). Each “bar” or measure has four beats with a backbeat emphasis on 2 and 4. The full progression is illustrated in Figure 9. To modern musicians “playing the blues” often means playing a piece that utilized the 12 bar-blues progression. The blues and pentatonic scales can be used to improvise melodies over the harmony of the blues progression.

    Figure 9: 12-Bar Blues Progression

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    By adding more chords to the traditional three songwriters build more complex chord progressions. In much music the chord added is a minor chord built on the sixth scale degree (sub-mediant/vi). Many pop hits from the 1950s and 60s used the “doo wop” progression of tonic, sub-mediant, sub-dominant, dominant (I- vi-IV-V) to create a “hit” sound. More recently the tonic, dominant, sub-mediant, sub-dominant (I-V-vi-IV) progression has been used to create many hits. There are many online videos in which musicians demonstrate this concept by playing the same chord progression while moving through many popular melodies.

    As the age of European colonialism gives way to the internet revolution Western musical influences can be found in cultures across the globe. This often manifests through the addition of harmony into popular and traditional
    genres. Harmony can now be heard within Bollywood, K-pop, J-pop, and Arabic popular music. Sometimes it is used in traditional Western ways while often it is simply used as a newer aesthetic preference that is not bound to Western traditions.

    Analyzing harmony:

    1. Is there harmony within the music?
    2. If so, what instrument(s) are playing the harmonic part?
    3. What scale or melodic mode serves as the foundation for the harmony?
    4. Is the harmony a repetitive chord progression? If so, what is the chord progression?