STAGE 2

HARMONY
CHEAT
SHEET

L E A N M U S I C I A N
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TENSION & RESOLUTION

Tension & resolution come from (in part) the interchange of non chord
tones (tension) and chord tones (resolution).

Depending on the style, some music will have more tension than resolution.
But whatever the style, good music has a balance of T&S that is satisfying to
the listener within the conventions of that style. It’s a huge part of your
design consideration as a composer or songwriter.

Remember that as well as the T&S against the backdrop of the chord that is
currently playing, there is also the relevance of the current chord to the root
note of the key.

In other words, you could be playing a chord which is really tense (like
chord 7 in major). If you play chord 7’s chord tones over the top, the chord
tones will be ‘resolved’. But chord 7 is quite tense in relation to the root
note of the key and it will want to be resolved.

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CHARACTERS OF THE KEY

The notes or degrees over the top of a chord create different characters.
Theoretically speaking we think of these as intervals.

Consciously or unconsciously composers use these to different effect,

favouring certain intervals over others at different points to create different
feelings in their melodies.

Some melodies might be quite narrow, using intervals like the 2nd:

(a visual representation below)

And some melodies might be quite wide, using intervals like the 5th & 6th:

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An interval (diatonically) is quite simple; you just need to count up or down

through the scale sequentially. For example a second is always one note up
or down in a scale:

A third is two notes up or down:

etc…

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ROMAN NUMERALS
Roman numerals are used in chord analysis to avoid using letters or
numbers which might confuse us with other uses of letters and numbers.
They also allow us to designate major and minor simply by using
capitalised numerals for major and lowercase numerals for minor.

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Analysis of chord progressions is most usefully done in Roman numerals, as

you will see, as it allows us to think relatively, i.e. independent of key.

CHORDS IN A KEY
The chords inside of a major scale are either major, minor or diminished. In
roman numerals, minor and diminished are both lowercase. The chords
inside of major and minor keys result in this pattern - get to know this well.

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HARMONIC STRUCTURE
After analysing the harmonic structures of music (which you should do lots
of), you can see that some music has very simple progressions but still
sounds incredibly full and complete. Take for example Hans Zimmer’s piece
Time.

This simply repeats the same progression over and over again throughout
the piece, whilst the arrangement and orchestration changes. So the
harmonic structure is fairly straightforward. That doesn’t mean it’s boring or
too simple - it just means it creates a certain effect.

If we compare that to another piece of HZ’s, Now We Are Free, we can see
that the harmonic structure is much more involved.

As you listen and analyse new pieces of music, be aware and try to
assimilate the harmonic structures and witness how they go to creating the
overall structure of the piece.

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CHORD 5 IN MINOR
When you play chords through a natural minor scale, chord 5 ends up
being minor.

However, Chord 5 in minor can be used in either major or minor form.

Typically it’s more often major than minor, but minor chord 5 also works
really well, depending on the context.

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To make chord 5 major from its minor version we raise the middle note by
one semitone.

So if you see a progression which is in a minor key and it goes:

i iv ii V i
the V (for chord 5) is an uppercase roman numeral, so it will be a major
chord 5. But if you see it lowercase, it will be minor.

i iv ii v i

PENTATONIC SCALE
The pentatonic scale is a very useful tool. It’s incredibly easy to write good
wholesome melodies using it. To create the major form of the major
pentatonic, start with a major scale and then take out notes 4 & 7

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Those remaining notes (1235&6) is the major pentatonic scale.

To do the same in minor, take a natural minor scale and omit notes 2 & 6

the resulting notes (13457) is the minor pentatonic scale.

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NON-DIATONIC NOTES
Non-diatonic notes are notes that are outside of the key/scale you are
currently in. They can be used to add more tension in either your melodies
or chords.

They are shown below as grey dots with white arrows pointing at them.

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VOICING
IT’S NOT
WHAT YOU
SAY
IT’S HOW YOU SAY IT

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METHODS OF VOICING
CHORDS DIFFERENTLY
The most standard (and somewhat dull) way of voicing a chord is a root
position triad. This is the way you need to understand it from a theoretical
point of view. However, it’s rare in your compositions that you should have a
set of sequential root position triads - you should strive for just a little more
complexity.

Some ways of transforming your chords are listed below.

Arpeggiation | Breaking the notes of the chord up one by one so that it

almost represents a melody. This is one of the most typical methods of
accompaniment.

Closed & Open Position | A closed position C major chord is the notes C-
E-G in that order and as close together as possible. An open position
voicing of that chord is those same notes, in the same order but with the
notes spread out.

There is only one version of a closed position chord but almost infinite
versions of an open position voicing of that chord.

Inversions | Inversions are where you change the bottom note of a chord to
be one of the other notes that are in that chord.

Doubling | Doubling one or more of the notes in your chord (duplicating it)
is a simple concept, but very powerful for making fuller sounding harmony.

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Dropping | Dropping is actually taking out one of the notes entirely. It’s
most famously used in the Power Chord where you drop the 3rd from a
triad.

Grace notes | Adding quick notes just before or very briefly at the start of
your voicing can add life, grit and character to your voicings. You can do
these grace notes with diatonic notes or non-diatonic notes.

Voice leading | Voice leading is a tricky concept to describe and harder still
to implement in the beginning. You are essentially thinking about each note
in your voicings as a separate ‘voice’. As you move between chords you are
thinking about making that voice move to a voice in the next chord with as
minimal amount of intervallic movement as possible.

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