A COMPREHENSIVE SOURCE FOR ALL MUSICIANS - yea ee 2 a : Se es Vv coy Keith Wyatt & Cet La hal Lalai a) My hac Ua Ir ahhh)ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS HARMON & THEOR by Keith Wyatt & Carl Schroeder Seu 0-738-7993-0 HAL*LEONARD® HRORATION “Sono 198 by HALLEONARO CORPDRATION Coors Copyign Serces At Pigs Reseed pa one puicaaneay be rence any 4 ery nian oa ine pot woen person of ro bie ‘i at Laon ating a “tovivltoenars.comIntroduction... : PART I: TOOLS—Notes, Rhythms, and Scales waranRwn— 10 u 2 B 14 6 6 v7 ParT ll: STRUCTURES—Chords and Chord Progressions ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS HARMONY & THEORY Contents Pitch Major Seales anc sharp Keys Flat Keys and Accidentals Intervals. Triads Note Values Time Signatures and Ties - Minor Scales. Pentatonic Scales Harmonizing the Major Scal Harmonizing the Minor Scale Dietonic Seventh Chords... Key Centers BIUES on Chord Inversion... Extended Chords .. Other Chord Types. PART lll: VARIATIONS—Harmony and Melody In the Real World 18 ee 19 ns in Minor Harmony... 20 Variations in Minor Melody 21 Modal interchange 22 Secondary Dominants 23. Altered Chords. 24 Altered Scales ... 25 Diminished Seventh Chords 26 Symmetrical Scaies.. 2] Diatonic Chord substicution 28 ‘Flat Five Substitution ......~ 28 Modulation .. Afterword 14 ‘Appendix I: Chord Symbols ... Van 44a ‘Appendix Il: Solutions to ExercisesTHe THEORY OF love Wenaede Nevorivy Meo. Suns yo “9 7G) aus aha : “= + = a +4 Se = ¥ j 3 = / 1G) cuit Cues, 07 ae | ge i =i SS =introduction he chait on the facing page tells a complete story, but Ws a story written in a spacial i language: the language of music. It contzins information that allows eny two musicians anywhere on this planet, speaking entirely diferent languages with their tongues, to play the samo piece of music on their instruments, To musicians who know the language, charts like this are the beginning point of musical conversation; to those who con't, they-ara just 2 fot of meaningless numers ‘and symbols, If this chart jooks more confusing than enlightening, thie Book is for you. ‘Harmony and Theory evelved through years of wilting, teaching, and revising the course ol the same name at Musicians Insitute. Ml is a hands-on musical 9erformance’ schac! that emphasizes the stage, not the classroom, so in this context the reasan for studying harmony and theory is practical, not intellectual. The goal of the course is simply to enable anyone playing any instrument in any popular style to pick up @ 500k of sheet music and understand what they see. The pointis to know tho language wall enough that you don't have to stop playing while you think about it—io be eble to use it asa tol tohelp you think more musically and thereby play better, quicker. As such, the knowledge contained in this book doen't replace good instrumental technique, playing experience, an accurate ear, or a sense of style, but t does provide a structure to te all of those essentials together, making you a complete musician. Most harmony and theory books approach the subject from a classical or compositicn-oriented perspective, but this one is for those whose tirst love Is playing aopular music in al its variations —rock, funk, blues, 209, country, jazz, ete. Many, if not mest, popular musicians first learn to play by ear and by feel, copying what others have done without necessarily knowing why it works. “Ear* and “feet” players also tend to be very unsure about the virtue of studying theary, caught between a sense of frustration at being musically iterate and a fear thet too much knowledge will got in the way of natural insplration Weitrounded musicians, however, lear to use their intellect to focus and enhance their oreatvity, much 8 an artist studies the inside of the human body in order to be better able t9 paint the outside. This book ig intended 16 give you an understanding of the intemal structure of everyday music so that instead of shying aviay from the printed page you can read it and get past it, back to the music itself {As teachers end authors, we have made a great many choices regarding what to put into this book ‘and what to leave out. New concepts are introduced by showing how and why they relate in practical terms fo understanding and performing popular music, In some cases, when there are several valid ways of explaining a certain idea, we have chosen to lessen confusion by limiting our explanation to the one apptoech we consider the most practical. This doesn't mean that otner approaches are wrong, but simply that tco many possiblities presented too eady stand In the vay of your ability to clearly see the fundamentals, What this book does not attempt to do is to show you detailed methods for improving, ‘arranging, or composing, While those Subjecis are reterre¢ to from time to time, the emphasis here is on Linderstanding the basic principles of music so that you can begin to read, study and listen 2s an educated musician, ‘Since this book is written by players for players, we considerit to be essential that you also play what you see in this book Only by getting these ideas off the page, anio an instrument (preferably keyboard ‘er guitar, so that you can play the chords}, and into your eat wil you gain the full practical benefit: You don't need to have much technique, only the willingness to take the time to figure out the notes so that ‘you can hear what's being described in words. Many times. a complicated idea will quickly make sense when you hear it connected to a farrier sound. ‘When you've finished this cok, look back at that chart again, and you'l see how everything on the page now tells a story. You will have begun to understand a language tnat expresses things no other language cen, and as a knowledgeable rmusician, you 190 wil now be partof the conversation. Carl Schroeder Keith WyattPart I: Tools Motes, Rhythms, and Scales No matter what the siyle or complexity, music can be most simply describad as organized sound, and the purpose of studying harmony and theory isto feam the methods by which sounds are orgenized in both large and small ways: The tist step in this stucy isto leain the writen language by which music ie communicated from ene musician fo another, The system of musical notation we use now has besn developed over hundreds of yea's and, the any language, continues to evolve. The capacity of these symbols fo pass along both the broad and subtie siemients of music are what allow a Chinose musician, for example, to perform a piece of music today just 2s @ Garman composer intardled it 300 yoars ago, or a guitar player to write a chert this alternoon and hear the band play # tonight. Its very important that you develop a clear, coneistont way of wring the various notes and rests $0 that otner musicians wil understand what you're saying, This involves a fair amount of repetiion—simaly crewing the symbols over and over unti may become natural io your hard. In the process, their mening will become clearer. so that you can think less about them as shepes and concentrate more on the music that comes from them, At he same time. itis very heloful if you study music reading on your instrument. By using notation in a practical way. you'll quickly get past the merely visual part and get 1o the music itselt. As with any language. it only becomes usable through constant applicationUsic is made up of sounds that that can be organized Inia three main elements: melody, BE er cere nce er en ay music notation, which allows @ reader to precisely locate and reproduce any musical ‘sound by means of a set of symbols that represent both the piten ot a no's (relative sense of high or low) and its rhythm (placement In time). We will look first 2t the symtols that represent pitch The system for rapresanting pitch is based on assigning a different name to each note. These note amas are tho same as the firet seven lettore of the alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F, and G) and togethor are called the musical alphaber. In spite of the large number of rotes that can be produced by musical instruments, only seven note names are needed because the elghth rote, called the octave, has the seme sound as the first, but higher in pitch—and therefore uses the same letter name es the first note, ‘The octave is both the end of the first set of notes and the beginning of the next. Different instruments ‘are capable of producing sounds in differant ranges of pitch, some in many diferent octaves and some in only a few, but all of these pitches are notated with the same seven letter names. Fig, 1: the musical alphabet EBs ert {Coat ele en lid tom nei cr A penet iy ene we Ceca? j ok « @& 8 @ BH NeW we. oe ociave ‘To\provide a consistent way of measuring pitch, notes are placed on a grid of five lines and four spaces called the staff The lines and spaces are numbered fom low to high to aid in showing the particular location of a note. The higher the pitch, the higher the note is placed on the staff Fig, 2:the staff higher 1 lower Slines A spaces Because different instruments produce higher or lower ranges of pitch, the staff can.be made to represent different ranges of pitch by mears of a cie/ sign. Tha two most common clef signs are treble lef, which is used to notate higher-pitched sounds (e-g., the guitar, the right hand of the keyboard), and ass clef, which is used to netate lower-pitched sounds (e.g., the bass, the left hand of the keyboard). ‘These symbols, while universally recognized by their shape alone, ars carefully placed on the staf so that they draw attention to specific notes. Tho treble Glat (also called the "G clef) spirals around the line where the note "G” is located. Fig. 3: the treble clet Webiece