Harmony
This article is about musical harmony and harmonies. For other uses of the term, see Harmony (disambiguation).Harmony is the use and study of
pitch simultaneity and
chords, actual or implied, in
music. It is sometimes referred to as the "vertical" aspect of music, with
melody being the "horizontal" aspect. Very often, harmony is a result of
counterpoint or
polyphony, several melodic lines or
motifs being played at once, though harmony may control the counterpoint.
The word
harmony comes from the
Greek ἁρμονία
harmonía meaning "a fastening or join". The concept of harmony dates as far back as
Pythagoras.
Some
traditions of music
performance,
composition, and
theory have specific rules of harmony. These rules are often held to be based on a 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.
Although most harmony comes about as a result of two or more notes being sounded simultaneously, it is possible to create harmony with only one melodic line. There are many pieces from the
baroque period for solo
string instruments for example, in which chords are very rare, but which nonetheless convey a full sense of harmony.
For much of the
common practice period of
European classical music, there was a general trend for harmony to become more dissonant; chords considered daring in one generation becoming commonplace in the next.
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.
*
Barbershop music*
Consonance and dissonance *
Chord (music)*
Chord sequence*
Chromatic chord*
Counterpoint*
Harmonic series*
Mathematics of musical scales*
Physics of music*
Rhythm*
Sixth chord*
Tonality*
Unified field*
Voice leading*
Bernoulli EffectTwentieth Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice by
Vincent Persichetti, ISBN 0393095398.
*
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 0393954803.
*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.
*Fink, Bob (2004). On the Origin of Music.
Greenwich, Canada. ISBN 0912424141. (ISBN Links to list of libraries where book is listed)
*Dahlhaus, Carl. Gjerdingen, Robert O. trans. (1990).
Studies in the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, p.141. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691091358.
*van der Merwe, Peter (1989).
Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0193161214.
*
Harmonic Progressions with demos and how to harmonise a melody*
General Principles of Harmony by Alan Belkin*
Tonalsoft Encyclopaedia of Tuning*
On-line essay: Evidence of Harmony in Ancient Music, -- publ by
Archaeo. Musicalis 1988). Study of oldest known song
*
Role of the drone in the evolution of counterpoint & harmony
