Day 9

Harmony

  • Check out this really good introductory video on ' What is harmony ' (quick 5 minute intro)
  • Keep track of the terms he uses ! you will see them later (Chord/Melody/Triad/Chant ETC.)
So essentially , Harmony Defined in the simplest way is:
When we are hearing:multiple, different pitches of music at the same time.

2 most important parts of the definition
We hear:
1.  Multiple Different Pitches
2.  Played at the same time
  • The Video we just watched uses scales and chords to demonstrate this
  • A scale will have many pitches, but in succession, or one after the other
Scale
  • A scale will have many pitches, but in succession, or one after the other
  • This can be confusing at first, but the best way is to hear it
Chords
Chords Deal with Harmony because the pitches are being played Simultaneously , not in succession .  This is  an important distinction !!

Activity #1: Intro to Harmony


  • This will be very similar to the Rhythm  video (part of the same documentary)
  • Follow to the Same model for an assignment: Keep track of the vocabulary throughout - try to get 15 terms with their definitions ( There are more than this....)

Instrumentation

This affects instrumentation, some instruments can play multiple pitches simultaneously and other can't . 
For example, think of:
  • a guitar strumming multiple strings at one time to create at chord
  • Or a piano hitting multiple keys at one time to play a chord
Whereas instruments like trumpet voice can only play one note at a time (try singing 2 notes at the same time.....)

****YOU can't sing more than one note as once, but if you had ten singers in a room and everyone is singing a different not at the same time , NOW we have Harmony****

Vocal Harmony: (as in , multiple voices, singing multiple notes):

Take a listen to this song that came out  few months ago for a popular movie. 
  • You will hear 2 voices singing the melody - a male and female. 
  • The male starts out on his own, then the female, then both together - a popular technique . 
Check it out..
So we have the vocals providing the melody, first seperately, then together. Lets hear each of those parts...
Male Vocals
  • Here below are the isolated male vocals, along with the sheet music . 
  • Follow along the lyrics with the notes ( it is only a partial excerpt)
Picture
Female Vocals
Next example is the isolated female vocals . 
  • The important thing to take note of is to hear in the music and see on the sheet music that they are both singing the same notes (thinking musical notes/pitches here, not just lyrics 
  • Even though we don't read music we can see that the lines and spaces are the same on the lyrics.
Picture
Both Vocals Together In Harmony
Play the next example
  • now we can hear that there are 2 voices, but they aren't sharing the same pitch/note - we hear two separate pitches
  • (remember not to confuse this with lyrics / words, they are singing the same words, but on two different notes in different ranges)

Defining Harmony

Picture
You will see a few examples of definitions in the google search, but the one i like the most is :

Harmony :  A combination of simultaneous pitches
Visualize a band on stage -  Guitar , bass, Vocals, Piano, Drums -  they are all playing simultaneously, however they aren't all playing the same notes - imagine if this happened at a concert - 5 people just playing the same note for the entire time - this would be EXTREMELY boring, and wouldn't really sound like music.
One note song :
Using Harmony :
Now This one - I used the same rhythm and the same note, but added other note playing simultaneously
In short :
  • 1 Instrument playing 1 Note ( Like a voice singing a melody) :  NO HARMONY
  • many instruments playing 1 note Like a rock band all playing the same note) : NO HARMONY
  • 1 Instruments playing many notes simultaneously ( Like a piano playing solo, using all the keys) :  HARMONY
  • many instruments playing many notes simultaneously (LIke a normal song) : HARMONY
take a listen to some of these examples with their sheet music -  try to see and hear that there are multiple notes being played simultaneously
Now take a listen to this - There is still harmony present, but it sounds disorganized, even just plain Wrong.
  • Make no mistake , this is as real composition by a reputable and famous composer !
  • The reason it sounds 'wrong' or 'bad' is that is uses dysfunctional harmony -  or he is picking notes that don't sound good when played at the same time
  • IN music , some notes sound better than others when played simultaneously
  • Think of a little kid going up to a piano and just banging on random notes a piano :
According to our definition of harmony , this still counts , as it is 'different notes being played simultaneously, ' but it doesn't sound 'good' or 'correct' , IT SOUNDS BAD !

When we talk about when notes sound 'good' or 'right' together , we are referring to functional harmony -  This means things like SCALES and CHORDS

Scales and Chords

Scales :

  • Musical Scale:   In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch.

OR

A group of notes played in succession that sound Good/Right together 

This is another concept that we take from the greeks

  • The greeks had specific groups of notes that they believed when played together represented and would even inspire certain emotions when humans heard them 

They called these MODES
  • They believed in this so much that they would use these groups of notes to compose songs 
Depending on the USE for the song (celebration, mourning, sporting, war)
they would choose notes only from the appropriate mode

This is also something that we take from the Greeks, as even until this day we associate Major Scales/Chords with Happy and Minor Scales/Chords with Sad

Chords

Where scales deal with groups of notes played in succession, Chords refer to notes that are played/ sounded simultaneously

 A Chord is  :   3 or more notes simultaneously 

Think of the timeline of Harmony - We started out with just one melody line of Gregorian chant,  Then they added a Drone, then a second line of Melody, giving us 3 separate notes sounding at one time. this gives us a chord!

Many of the examples of innovation in that timeline were attempts to figure out how to successfully (in a way that sounds good) put scales with chords.  


If we think of 2 components of a song :    Melody and Harmony  
in a Given Pop song  these will be represented by a vocal melody, and a chordal instrument (such as piano or guitar)

Check out the music below, see how there are always at least 3 notes happening at the same time ?

Short History of Harmony