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 Art 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. 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. ... In music, a simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession. ... Typical fingering for a second inversion C major chord on a guitar. ... // Music is an art form consisting of sound and silence expressed through time. ... A chord progression, as its name implies, is a series of chords played in an order. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm, and interdependent in harmony. ... Polyphony is a musical 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). ... In music the common practice period is a long period in western musical history spanning from before the classical era proper to today, dated, on the outside, as 1600-1900. ...

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] In Greek mythology, Harmonia is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. ...

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 natural 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. For the opening number of Fiddler on the Roof, see Tradition (song). ... Buskers perform in San Francisco A 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). ... Musical composition is: a piece of music the structure of a musical piece the process of creating a new piece of music // A piece of music exists in the form of a written composition in musical notation or as a single acoustic event (a live performance or recorded track). ... Music theory is a field of study that investigates the nature or mechanics of music. ... Pythagorean tuning is a system of musical tuning in which the frequency relationships of all intervals are based on the ratio 3:2. ... In acoustics and telecommunication, the harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency. ... Acoustic resonance is an important consideration for instrument builders as most acoustic instruments use resonators, such as the strings and body of a violin, the length of tube in a flute, and the shape of a drum membrane. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

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: Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750 (see Dates of classical music eras for a discussion of the problems inherent in defining the beginning and end points). ... A string instrument (or stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. ... The Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001–1006) is a set of six works composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. ...

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

Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 177 pixel Image in higher resolution (881 × 195 pixel, file size: 29 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Example of implied harmonies in a monodic line. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 177 pixel Image in higher resolution (881 × 195 pixel, file size: 29 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Example of implied harmonies in a monodic line. ... Bach in a 1748 portrait by Haussmann Johann Sebastian Bach (pronounced ) (21 March 1685 O.S. – 28 July 1750 N.S.) was a prolific German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it...

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. Carl Dahlhaus (June 10, 1928- May 1989), 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. ... A hierarchy (in Greek hieros = sacred, arkho = rule) is a system of ranking and organizing things. ... Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a key center or tonic. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. ... In music, interval cycles, unfold a single recurrent interval in a series that closes with a return to the initial pitch class, and are notated by George Perle using the letter C, for cycle, with an interval class integer to distinguish the interval. ... Portrait of Alban Berg by Arnold Schoenberg, c. ... George Perle (born May 6, 1915 in Bayonne, New Jersey) is a composer and musicologist who has studied with Ernst Krenek. ... Schoenberg redirects here. ... Béla Bartók in 1927 Béla Viktor János Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and collector of Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk music. ... Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer. ... Density 21. ...

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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. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Quartal harmonies and quintal harmonies are harmonies based on fourths and fifths rather than the traditional harmonies based on thirds. ... ( Listen) Four tone quartal chord In music, quartal harmony is the building of chordal and melodic structures with a distinct preference for intervals of fourths. ...

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. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is one of the popular English nursery rhymes. ...

The following are common intervals:

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:

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.

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. In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, sounding together) is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable. ...

Typically, a dissonant chord (chord with a tension) will "resolve" to a consonant chord.

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: Vocal music is music performed by one or more singers, with or without non-vocal instrumental accompaniment, in which singing provides the main focus of the piece. ... This article is about the singing voice part. ... In music, an alto or contralto is a singer with a vocal range somewhere between a tenor and a mezzo-soprano. ... A tenor is a singer with a voice range from approximately C3 (one octave below middle C) to A4 (above middle C) in choral music, or to tenor C (C5, one octave above middle C) or higher in operatic music (see voice type). ... A bass (or basso in Italian) is a male singer who sings in the deepest vocal range of the human voice. ...

• 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.

See also

Look up harmony in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Barbershop music
• Consonance and dissonance
• Chord (music)
• Chord sequence
• Chromatic chord
• Counterpoint
• Harmonic series
• Homophony (music)
• Mathematics of musical scales
• Musica universalis
• Peter Westergaard's tonal theory
• Physics of music
• Tonality
• Unified field
• Voice leading

Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... The Dapper Dans, a barbershop quartet at Disney World Barbershop harmony, as codified during the barbershop revival era (1940s-present), is a style of a cappella, or unaccompanied vocal music characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture. ... In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, sounding together) is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable. ... Typical fingering for a second inversion C major chord on a guitar. ... A chord progression, as its name implies, is a series of chords played in an order. ... A chromatic chord is any musical chord that includes at least one note not belonging in the diatonic scale associated with the prevailing key. ... In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm, and interdependent in harmony. ... Pitched musical instruments are usually based on a harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air. ... Homophony in Tallis If ye love me, composed in 1549. ... There are arguments that mathematics can be used to analyse and understand music, and at its core, to compose music itself. ... Musica universalis or music of the spheres is a medieval philosophical concept that regards the proportions in the movements of the celestial bodies - the Sun, Moon and planets - as a form of musica (the medieval Latin name for music). ... Peter Westergaards tonal theory is the theory of tonal music developed by Peter Westergaard and outlined in Westergaards 1975 book An Introduction to Tonal Theory (hereafter referred to as ITT). ... Sound waves Variations in air pressure against the ear drum, and the subsequent physical and neurological processing and interpretation, give rise to the experience called sound. Most sound that people recognize as musical is dominated by periodic or regular vibrations rather than non-periodic ones (called a definite pitch), and... Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a key center or tonic. ... In music unified field is often used to refer to the unity of musical space created by the free use of melodic as harmonic and harmonic as melodic material. ... In music, voice leading is the continuity between pitches or notes played successively in time. ...

Further reading

• Ebenezer Prout -- Harmony (1889, Revised 1901).
• Twentieth Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice by Vincent Persichetti, ISBN 0-393-09539-8.
• Arnold Schoenberg -- Harmonielehre. Universal Edition, 1911. Trans. by Roy Carter as Theory of Harmony. University of California Press, 1978
• Arnold Schoenberg -- Structural Functions of Harmony. Ernest Benn Limited, second (revised) edition, 1969. Ed. Leonard Stein.
• Walter Piston -- Harmony, 1969. ISBN 0-393-95480-3.
• Copley, R. Evan (1991). Harmony, Baroque to Contemporary, Part One (2nd ed.). Champaign: Stipes Publishing. ISBN 0-87563-373-0.
• Copley, R. Evan (1991). Harmony, Baroque to Contemporary, Part Two (2nd ed.). Champaign: Stipes Publishing. ISBN 0-87563-377-3.
• Kholopov, Yuri, "Harmony. Practical Course". In 2 Vol., Moscow: Kompozitor, 2003. ISBN 5-85285-619-3.

Vincent Persichetti (June 6, 1915 – August 14, 1987) was a composer and teacher at the Juilliard School whose students included Philip Glass and Thelonious Monk. ... Schoenberg redirects here. ... Walter Hamor Piston Jr. ... Yuri Nikolaevich Kholopov (Russian Юрий Николаевич Холопов) (born August, 14 1932, Ryazan – died April 24, 2003, Moscow). ... The International Standard Book Number, or ISBN (sometimes pronounced is-ben), is a unique[1] identifier for books, intended to be used commercially. ...

References

1. ^ Dahlhaus, Carl. "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.

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2001 The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians, considered by most scholars to be the best general reference source on the subject in the English language. ... is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2001 The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians, considered by most scholars to be the best general reference source on the subject in the English language. ... is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...

External links

• Harmonic Progressions with demos and how to harmonise 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