Chapter 15:Harmony and Counterpoint 189
Living in Harmony
Harmony is like playing chords behind a melody, only using other instruments
or voices. In fact, the art of adding chords to a melody is a harmonic exercise.
We add harmony parts to our music because harmony lends richness to a song.
It fills out a single melody line and reinforces the underlying chord structure.
A melody with backing harmonies is the difference between a solo vocalist and a
full chorus. It’s the difference between a folk singer with an acoustic guitar and
a pop singer with a group of backup vocalists. It’s the difference between a jazz
trio and a big band.
In other words, harmony makes music bigger.
You create harmony parts by using the notes in the underlying chord progres-
sion. If all you do is assign specific notes of a chord to specific instruments or
voices, you’ve created harmony.
It doesn’t have to be much harder than that. Harmony parts, whether vocal or
instrumental, are typically less rhythmically complex than the main melody. It’s
not uncommon to find harmony parts consisting of whole notes or half notes
while the melody maintains a more complex rhythm.
Harmony parts can also mirror the rhythm of the melody; in these instances,
the harmony resembles classical counterpoint—which you’ll learn about later in
this chapter. Harmony can also be used to punctuate the melody, fill in breaks
in the melody, and function as a kind of call-and-response mechanism. (Think
of the classic pop tune “Midnight Train to Georgia”; Gladys Knight is the call
and the Pips are the response—woo woo!)
In terms of harmonic complexity, you can have everything from a single accompa-
nying voice to choruses and string sections with two and three and more voices.
The more voices you have, the more challenging it is to create distinct harmony
parts without doubling or duplicating other parts. Of course, writing a single
harmony part is also challenging, but in a different way; that single part has to
include just the right notes, suggesting the underlying chord without distracting
from the main melody.
For the purposes of learning basic theory, we’re going to concentrate on simple
two- and three-part backing harmony, without a lot of rhythmic or melodic
complexity. Once you master this type of rudimental harmony, you can expand
to include more complex types of vocal and instrumental backing.
Voicing and Inversions
The order of the notes of a chord (top to bottom) is referred to as the chord
voicing.(It’s also called the chord inversion,as you learned in Chapter 9.) Voicing
is very important when you’re writing harmony parts, because you have to
employ different voicings to avoid parallel motion between parts.