Hello class! Today, we continue our journey of discovering each element of music for this semester. Our next stop will reveal another significant element, harmony.
As fundamental an element as melody, harmony enhances the memorability of a melody because it adds depth and color to music. I call harmony the three-dimensional aspect of music because of its chord progressions and harmonic textures. I'll start by defining harmony. It refers to the combination of simultaneous pitches or chords in a way that should satisfy the ear. Nevertheless, harmony can also be dissonant or filled with tension.
When it is consonant, it can be pleasing and charming. In my personal view, dissonance and consonance help create a balanced musical work. Consonance results from a harmonious and stable combination of notes.
While dissonance refers to tense, unstable note combinations that create a sense of conflict or tension. It's a great mix for any music work. Perhaps a good example is to associate dissonance with hot sauce. For some people, it adds to the flavor of food. Others dislike it.
This will always be a personal preference. In the same way, some composers use dissonance more than others. As mentioned in the lecture on melody, Tension and release are necessary in the arts and music. Harmonic tension is the sense of instability or dissonance created by specific chord progressions.
It is typically resolved by moving to more stable or consonant chords. Harmonic tension creates a sense of anticipation and suspense, driving the listener's emotional engagement, and heightening the impact of resolution and release moments in the music. Composers of the Baroque period often used a component of harmony rooted in suspensions to create tension. Suspended chords still create exciting musical tension. Harmonic suspensions generally extend the duration of a particular note from one chord into the next, creating expectation or musical tension that has to be resolved to consonance or resolution, adding emotion and anticipation to a harmonic passage.
As you already know, Harmony and melody are pretty different elements with different functions. While melody focuses on a sequence of single notes, harmony involves the combination of multiple notes or chords played simultaneously to support and enrich the melody. Because they are different, they also have other roles inside a musical composition.
Harmony provides depth, color and texture to the music. supporting the melody or that single line of music while contributing to a piece's overall mood and emotion. To clarify the concept of harmonic texture a bit more, I always refer to a musical composition's density and arrangement of chords and notes. This harmonic texture could be thin and transparent, thick and dense, or anywhere in between, affecting the richness and complexity of the music's harmonic structure. Baroque harmonic textures are thin compared to the symphonic poems of the Romantic period.
Other components related to harmony include chords, chord progressions, voicing, and harmonic rhythm. These allow flexibility to composers who create music using the available palette of musical elements to take their music to the next level. And this next level has to do with creating a satisfying progression of chords.
that help paint the emotional side of any work of music. It could be consonant, dissonant, or a combination of both. Harmonic rhythm signals the frequency of chord changes within a piece of music.
It influences the pacing, tension, and forward momentum of the music. As we'll see in our next episode, rhythm has to do with the pace of music. Therefore, harmonic rhythm is the pace of harmonic changes. Western composers use their harmonic progressions by arranging chords in a sequence that follows Western harmonic traditions and principles, often aiming to create tension and resolution in their music.
However, they sometimes break those rules or traditions to find new harmonic paradigms that break with previously used chord progressions. In defining a chord progression, you should understand that it consists of a series of chords played in succession, one after the other, following a particular rhythmical design, as explained above. It determines the harmonic structure of a piece, and guides the listener through one or various tonal centers and emotional changes. Among some of the most absolute music conventions of our Western traditions, is the use of chord functionality within harmony.
This leads me to explain the importance of the tonic, or the tonic chord in harmony. It is the central pitch or chord of the key in which the musical piece is written, providing a point of stability and resolution in harmony. The strong magnetism of the tonic or the tonic chord allows a universe of available notes and chords to stay connected to the tonal center. Other chords are classified based on their relationship to the tonic chord. also known as the root chord.
Our Western music traditions define chord functions based on how each one interacts within a particular tonal universe. Chords create different types of magnetism as they relate to tension and release. Some examples are the dominant and subdominant chords. Generally, they define, along with the tonic chord, the tonal key in which a piece of music is written. In a C major tonality, All notes are natural or unaltered.
Therefore, a flat or a sharp note would add tension to any piece written in C major because they are altered. The good news is that tension will be resolved by returning to a natural note, as in the case of the C major example. The available harmonic palette for any composer is diverse since there are different types of chords, such as major, minor, diminished, and augmented. which provide varying degrees of tension and stability, contributing to harmony's satisfactory aspect.
Composers consider many other additional elements when creating a new composition. For example, a composer may have several tonal centers in mind when writing a piece, which could contribute to more profound musical expressions. Modulation also serves to transition from one section to another. By using chromaticism and more complex and extended harmonies, a composer can create subtle shifts in tonality and emotional expression within a piece of music. Modulations in a harmonic scheme involve shifting from one key, for example C major, to another key within the same piece of music, often introducing new tonal colors or creating dramatic tension and release.
This is a great strategy to make music more exciting. It is like going from one land to another. Harmonic modulation introduces new tonal colors and harmonic textures, creating mood, tension, and emotional intensity changes within a composition.
Composers use the circle of fifths to create exciting modulations in jazz and, honestly, all types of music. The circle of fifths is a visual representation of the relationships between key signatures, based on the intervals of fifths. Music moves from a C-tonal center, to a G-tonal center, to a D-tonal center, and so on, always in fifth intervals. It illustrates chord progression changes in the music composition.
Nevertheless, music creation must be balanced and uncomplicated. To obtain balance in a composition, the composer must distribute the concept of tension and resolution throughout a piece of music, ensuring that harmonic changes feel purposeful and organic. contributing to the overall structure and coherence of the composition. As I finish the harmony presentation, I hope you understand that composers will always draw on the rich palette of harmonic techniques mentioned above to create music rooted in tradition and exploratory expression. The future implies blending familiar elements with new ideas to continue with the evolution of music.