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Help! Im Hassled by Harmony!

A harmony course for A-level Music students Lesson 1


Harmony means a use of chords. There are many types of harmony which use different accompaniment styles. However, for AS level we will be learning about how to arrange chords for a choir, as if we were writing for singers. This demands a specialised approach and we will be using some strict criteria to help us that do not necessarily apply across all eras of musical history. We will be composing in the style of Bach and we will be trying to understand what it was like to have his sort of musical brain!!

First, something on the choir.


A choir is made up of four voices: soprano, alto, tenor and bass. They have the following range:

Soprano and alto share the treble clef, while tenor and bass share the bass clef. The stems on the notes must always go up for tenor and soprano and always go down for bass and alto, otherwise confusion reigns! E.g.:

How to get started in harmony


Step one When harmonising a passage, the first step is to identify the key you are working in. In the example above, the key is G major. (One sharp = G major or E minor, but as there are no D#s which would be the raised 7 th of the minor key the passage must be major.) However, we will work in C major for the moment so that it is easy to see what is going on without worrying about accidentals. Step two Write a scale in semibreves in that key. For example:

Step three Now make each note of the scale into a triad by adding a 3rd onto the notes of the scale and a third above that. This will look like this:

Step four Now we figure our chords so that we can see exactly what notes we have in each chord we will be using. Generally Roman numerals are used to do this in Bach harmony. What we now have looks like the following:

Primary Triads
The most important chords in the scale are the tonic chord (I), followed by the dominant (V) and the subdominant (IV). Some passages can be harmonised with these chords alone and they are certainly the strongest chords in our triad scale. We will use chords I, IV and V more than any others and they form the basis of most of the commonest cadences.

When arranging these triads for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass (SATB), we hit a bit of a snag. There are three notes in the chord, but four vocal parts. In order to get around this, we must double (or repeat) one of the notes in the chord. The rules are as follows: You must not double the third, but you must include it. The root of the chord is the strongest note to double, but. . . You may also double the 5th. For the moment, we will always put the root of the chord (the one at the bottom) in the bass. Here are some possible arrangements of chord I:

The spacing of your chord is also important. To guide us in this, we are not allowed to have a gap of more than an octave between parts, except in the tenor and bass where this sounds quite good. So this is right:

But this is not:

Now using some manuscript paper, see if you can arrange chords I, IV and V in C major correctly. Then try to make different (but still correct!) versions of chords I, IV and V in D major and Eb major.

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