Category: Harmony
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Diatonic Chord Orbits
I’ve been playing around with circle diagrams. We are titling the following chart “Diatonic Chord Orbits”: It is a nice way to demonstrate the relationships and shared tones between dominant and leading tone sevenths with other diatonic chords. Note that the inner circle contains only primary chords and that all the major scale tones are…
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Seventh Chords
Common Seventh Chords Seventh chords are named by the quality of the triad and the quality from the root to the seventh. Major-major seventh MM7 Major triad + major seventh Major-minor seventh Mm7 Major triad + minor seventh Minor-minor seventh mm7 Minor triad + minor seventh Minor-major seventh mM7 Minor triad + major seventh Other…
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Part Writing with Dominant and Leading Tone Sevenths
Review Seventh Chords Review the fundamentals of seventh chords. Make sure you understand qualities, naming conventions, and inversions. Structure of Dominant Sevenths Dominant Seventh chords are major-minor type seventh chords (Mm7). In a major key, the only diatonic occurrence of a Mm7 is on the 5th scale degree, hence the name ‘dominant’ seventh. Another way…
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Part Writing Guidelines
Stay within the range. Favor stepwise motion. Avoid melodic A2, A4, d5. No more than an octave between S+A, A+T. If the bass voice is below C3, place the tenor above E3. Avoid consecutive P5 and P8. Double the bass note unless it is a sensitive chord tone. Move soprano and bass voices in contrary…
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Part Writing Triads in Inversion
Why Inversions? Vary the sound of harmonies. Vary the harmonic “weight” of chord resolutions. Reduce the “clunkiness” of the bass line and improve voice leading. First Inversion Doubling In major and minor triads, double any voice except sensitive tones (leading tone, altered tones). This is almost always a doubled bass or soprano voice. Consider the…
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The Chorale: Part 2
Root Position Chord Movements in Seconds Chords that are a second apart share no common tones. Doubling The bass voice should be doubled in root position whenever possible to provide the most harmonic stability. If the bass cannot be double for a valid harmonic reason, doubling the third of the chord is the next most…
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The Chorale: Part 1
The Chorale A chorale is a Lutheran hymn. During the Protestant Reformation, the break with the Catholic church created a need for “new” musical material to perform during church services. In the 17th century, these melodies were arranged into 4-part polyphonic works. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was among the most prolific composers of these harmonizations. Bach…
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Voicing and Connecting Chords
Voicing Closed vs. Open Spacing Keep adjacent upper voice pairs within one octave of one another (S+A, A+T). Greater distance is required between the tenor and bass voice. Closed voicings between the lower voices often creates dissonances in overtones, which results in a muddier sound. Doubling Doubling is often necessary in a four-part texture, especially…
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Theory 103 Notes from Fall 2017
These will eventually be built into the site. For now, following the links to download pdfs:
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