harmony

Information about harmony

This article is about musical harmony and harmonies. For other uses of the term, see Harmony (disambiguation).

In Western music, harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity, and therefore chords, actual or implied, in music. The study of harmony may often refer to the study of harmonic progressions, the movement from one pitch simultaneity to another, and the structural principles that govern such progressions. ^[1] In Western Music, harmony often refers to the "vertical" aspects of music, distinguished from ideas of melodic line, or the "horizontal" aspect. For this reason, considerations of counterpoint or polyphony are often distinguished from those of harmony, though contrapuntal writing of the common practice period of western music is often conceived and defined in terms of underlying harmonic motion. Legato= smooth and flows together.

Origin of term, and history of use

The term harmony originates in the Greek harmonía, meaning "joint, agreement, concord" ^[2]. In Ancient Greek music, the term was used to define the combination of contrasted elements: a higher and lower note. ^[3]

Historical rules of harmony

Some traditions of music performance, composition, and theory have specific rules of harmony. These rules are often held to be based on unnatural properties such as Pythagorean tuning's low whole number ratios ("harmoniousness" being inherent in the ratios either perceptually or in themselves) or harmonics and resonances ("harmoniousness" being inherent in the quality of sound), with the allowable pitches and harmonies gaining their beauty or simplicity from their closeness to those properties. Other traditions, such as the ban on parallel fifths, were simply matters of taste.

Although most harmony comes about as a result of two or more notes being sounded simultaneously, it is possible to strongly imply harmony with only one melodic line. Many pieces from the baroque period for solo string instruments, such as Bach's Sonatas and partitas for solo violin, convey subtle harmony through inference rather than full chordal structures; see below:

Example of implied harmonies in J.S. Bach's Cello Suite no. 1 in G, BWV 1007, bar 1.

Types of harmony

Carl Dahlhaus (1990) distinguishes between coordinate and subordinate harmony. Subordinate harmony is the hierarchical tonality or tonal harmony well known today, while coordinate harmony is the older Medieval and Renaissance tonalité ancienne, "the term is meant to signify that sonorities are linked one after the other without giving rise to the impression of a goal-directed development. A first chord forms a "progression" with a second chord, and a second with a third. But the earlier chord progression is independent of the later one and vice versa." Coordinate harmony follows direct (adjacent) relationships rather than indirect as in subordinate. Interval cycles create symmetrical harmonies, such as frequently in the music of Alban Berg, George Perle, Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, and Edgard Varèse's Density 21.5.

Other types of harmony are based upon the intervals used in constructing the chords used in that harmony. Most chords used in western music are based on "tertial" harmony, or chords built with the interval of thirds. In the chord C Major7, C-E is a major third; E-G is a minor third; and G to B is a major third. Other types of harmony consist of quartal harmony and quintal harmony.

Intervals

An interval is the relationship between two separate musical pitches. For example, in the melody "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", the first two notes (the first "twinkle") and the second two notes (the second "twinkle") are at the interval of one fifth. What this means is that if the first two notes were the pitch "C", the second two notes would be the pitch "G"--four scale notes, or seven chromatic notes (one fifth), above it.

The following are common intervals:

Root	Third	Minor third	Fifth
C	E	Eb	G
Db	F	E	Ab
D	F#	F	A
Eb	G	Gb	Bb
E	G#	G	B
F	A	Ab	C
F#	A#	A	C#
G	B	Bb	D
Ab	C	B	Eb
A	C#	C	E
Bb	D	Db	F
B	D#	D	F#

Therefore, the combination of notes with their specific intervals - a chord - creates harmony. For example, in a C chord, there are three notes: C, E, and G. The note "C" is the root tone, with the notes "E" and "G" providing harmony.

In the musical scale, there are twelve pitches. Each pitch is referred to as a "degree" of the scale. In actuality, there are no names for each degree-there is no real "C" or "E-flat" or "A". Nature did not name the pitches. The only inherent quality that these degrees have is their harmonic relationship to each other. The names A, B, C, D, E, F, and G are intransigent. The intervals, however, are not. Here is an example:

1°	2°	3°	4°	5°	6°	7°	8°
C	D	E	F	G	A	B	C \| D \| E \| F# \| G \| A \| B \| C# \| D

As you can see there, no note always corresponds to a certain degree of the scale. The "root", or 1st-degree note, can be any of the 12 notes of the scale. All the other notes fall into place. So, when C is the root note, the fourth degree is F. But when D is the root note, the fourth degree is G. So while the note names are intransigent, the intervals are not. In layman's terms: a "fourth" (four-step interval) is always a fourth, no matter what the root note is. The great power of this fact is that any song can be played or sung in any key-it will be the same song, as long as the intervals are kept the same.

Chords & Tensions

There are certain basic harmonies. A basic chord consists of three notes: the root, the third above the root, and the fifth above the root (which happens to be the minor third above the third above the root). So, in a C chord, the notes are C, E, and G. In an A-flat chord, the notes are Ab, C, and Eb. In many types of music, notably baroque and jazz, basic chords are often augmented with "tensions". A tension is a degree of the scale which, in a given key, hits a dissonant interval. The most basic, common example of a tension is a "seventh" (actually a minor, or flat seventh)--so named because it is the seventh degree of the scale in a given key. While the actual degree is a flat seventh, the nomenclature is simply "seventh". So, in a C7 chord, the notes are C, E, G, and Bb. Other common dissonant tensions include ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths. In jazz, chords can become very complex with several tensions.

Typically, a dissonant chord (chord with a tension) will "resolve" to a consonant chord. A good harmonization usually sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between the consonant and dissonant sounds. In simple words, that occurs when there is a balance between "tension" and "relax" moments. Because of this reason, usually tensions are 'prepared' and then 'resolved'.

Preparing a tension means to place a series of consonant chords that lead smoothly to the dissonant chord. In this way the composer ensures to build up the tension of the piece smoothly, without disturbing the listener. Once the piece reaches it's sub-climax, the listener needs a moment of relaxation to clear up the tension, which is obtained by playing a consonant chord that resolves the tensions of the previous chords. The clearing of this tension usually produces pleasure in the listener.

Consonant/Dissonant Sound Balance

Harmony is complex in the way that you can not ensure a listener's likeness by just using consonant sounds as the piece may result not interesting and too simple. However, the excess of tension moments that require relaxation may disturb the listener.

Contemporary music has evolved in the way that tensions are less prepared and less structured than in Baroque or Classical periods, thus producing new styles such as Jazz and Blues, where tensions are usually not prepared.

Part harmonies

In vocal music, the four basic "parts" are soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. A chord may be spread across parts in order to provide harmony. For example, a vocal piece's harmony may be constructed by the following:

Bass - root note of chord (1st degree)
Tenor and Alto - provide harmonies corresponding to the 3rd and 5th degrees of the scale; the Alto line usually sounds a third below the soprano,
Soprano - melody line; usually provides all tensions.

References

1. ^ Dahlhaus, Car. "Harmony", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 24 February 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
2. ^ '1. Harmony' The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology in English Language Reference, accessed via Oxford Reference Online (24th February 2007).
3. ^ Dahlhaus, Carl. "Harmony", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 24 February 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).

Dahlhaus, Carl. Gjerdingen, Robert O. trans. (1990). Studies in the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, p.141. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09135-8.
van der Merwe, Peter (1989). Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-316121-4.

External links

The Piano Encyclopedia 2400 Animations and sound-recordings showing how to master harmonization of scales, for composing and improvising at the piano.
Harmonic Progressions with demos and how to harmonize a melody
General Principles of Harmony by Alan Belkin
Morphogenesis of chords and scales Chords and scales classification
A Beginner's Guide to Modal Harmony
LucyTuning
Sonantometry as Natural Harmony Algebra

A Biblical harmony is a chart or table showing the harmony among the books of the Bible.

Harmony is also the art of using chords in music.

In music, harmony may also refer to:

Harmony

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Western music is the genres of music originating in the Western world (Europe and its former colonies) including Western classical music, American Jazz, Country and Western, pop music and rock and roll.
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In music, a simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession. This first appeared in the music of Charles Ives, and is common in the music of Conlon Nancarrow and others.
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chord (from Greek χορδή: gut, string) is three or more different notes that sound simultaneously. Most often, in European-influenced music, chords are tertian sonorities that can be constructed as stacks of thirds relative to some underlying scale.
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A chord progression (also chord sequence and harmonic progression or sequence), as its name implies, is a series of chords played in order. Chord progressions are central to most modern European-influenced music and the principle study of harmony.
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Classical music is a broad term that usually refers to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, Western art, ecclesiastical and concert music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to the 21st century.
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melody, also tune, voice, or line, is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord (see harmony). However, this succession must contain change of some kind and be perceived as a single entity (possibly Gestalt) to be called a
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In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm, and interdependent in harmony. It has most commonly been identified in Western music, developing strongly in the Renaissance, and also dominant in much of the common
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polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony).
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History of European art music
Early
Medieval (476 – 1400)
Renaissance (1400 – 1600)
Common practice
Baroque (1600 – 1760)
Classical (1730 – 1820)
Romantic (1815 – 1910)
Modern and contemporary
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In Greek mythology, Harmonia is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Her Roman counterpart is Concordia, and her Greek opposite is Eris, whose Roman counterpart is Discordia.
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The word tradition comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over." It is used in a number of ways in the English language:

Beliefs or customs taught by one generation to the next, often orally.

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performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which one group of people (the performer or performers) behave in a particular way for another group of people (the audience).
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Musical composition is a phrase used in a number of contexts, the most commonly used being a piece of music. It is also used, however, to refer the structure of a musical piece and to the process of creating or orchestrating a new piece of music.
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This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject.
Please help recruit one or [ improve this article] yourself. See the talk page for details.
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Pythagorean tuning is a system of musical tuning in which the frequency relationships of all intervals are based on the ratio 3:2. Its name comes from medieval texts which attribute its discovery to Pythagoras, but its use has been documented as long ago as 3500 B.C.
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harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency. For example, if the frequency is f, the harmonics have frequency 2f, 3f, 4f, etc.
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Acoustic resonance is the tendency of an acoustic system to absorb more energy when the frequency of its oscillations matches the system's natural frequency of vibration (its resonance frequency) than it does at other frequencies.
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In music, consecutive fifths (also known as parallel fifths) involve the concurrence of successive intervals of a perfect fifth between two voices in parallel motion; e.g., a parallel movement from C to D in one voice, and G to A in a higher voice.
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Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750.^[1] This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance and was followed by the Classical music era.
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A string instrument (or stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones.
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The Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001–1006) is a set of six works composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. They were nearly destroyed when they were discovered to be used as butcher paper.
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Carl Dahlhaus (born June 10 1928 in Hanover, died May 1989 Berlin), a musicologist from Berlin, has been one of the major contributors to the development of musicology as a scholarly discipline during the post-war era.
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hierarchy (in Greek: Ἱεραρχία, derived from ἱερός — hieros, 'sacred', and
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Tonality is a system of music in which certain hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center" or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre Choron (1810) and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840 (Reti, 1958; Simms 1975, 119; Judd, 1998;
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The term medieval music encompasses European music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire (476 AD) and ends in approximately the middle of the fifteenth century.
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Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. Defining the beginning of the era is difficult, given the lack of abrupt shifts in musical thinking during the 15th century.
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In music, an interval cycle is the collection of pitches created by starting with a certain note and going up by a certain interval until the original note is reached (e.g.
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Alban Maria Johannes Berg (February 9, 1885 – December 24, 1935) was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian romanticism with a personal adaptation of
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