Basic Harmony

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Traditional Western music is inspired by harmony, which most of us think of as the "chords" which go with the melodies in our music.  If you ever learned to play the guitar, you learned the chords that you played while singing a song, so that you actually learned a very clear-cut, rather oversimplified view of what harmony is.

The chords that most young guitarists learn are about 15 or 20 in number (ignoring variations of the same chord played using different positions on the fretboard).  In rock music, in particular, the bass note of the chord is usually played on an entirely separate instrument (the electric bass guitar), so that the lowest note in a chord you strum is actually not really important, since the bass guitar plays an even lower note.  But in classical harmony, the bass note is actually rather a big deal.  In this post we're going to only look at the basics, and we're going to worry about additional details some other time.

When you learn guitar chords, you must learn a song differently depending on whether you have a high or a low voice.  For instance if you have a high voice, you might play a song "in C," which means you have to use the chords C, G, F, A minor, and so on.  But if that's too high for you, you might play the song "in A," which means you have to use the chords A, E, D, F Sharp minor, and so on instead.  To the guitar student, therefore, it seems as though you have to learn a whole different ballgame depending on whether you want to sing the song at one pitch or a slightly different pitch, without cheating by using a Capo.  In classical music theory, they don't worry about all this!  They use a relative method of chord notation that's almost like Do-Re-Mi, which is a relative method of describing tunes.

Whatever pitch you're going to be singing in, there is the Tonic note, the note for which the key is named, also called "Do".  (The "Do-Re-Mi" system is called Tonic Sol-Fa, if you didn't know already.)  Let's number the notes, using 1 for the tonic note, 2 for the next note (called the supertonic, but we're not going to use any more of those names), 3 for the next note, and so on, until we get to 8, which we could call 1 again, since it is just the same note as 1, only an octave higher.  This identification of note 8 with note 1 is sometimes convenient, othertimes not, so be ready to use 9 instead of 2, 10 instead of 3, and so forth.

The chord I = [1-3-5]
The main chord of the key is the Tonic triad, which consists of the notes 1, 3 and 5 sounded together.  You can add 8, 10 and 12, but you realize this is simply harmonic duplication, since they're the notes 1-3-5, only an octave higher.  So we're going to say that the chord consists of just 1-3-5, though additional octaves are understood to be allowed.

The chord II = [2-4-6]
This second chord is by no means the second most important chord, but importance is relative, but sequence is absolute, and there's no denying that this is the easiest chord to describe next.

At this point, it might make sense for you to take a second and get to a piano.  The best key on which to experiment is C major, which has no black keys at all.  To get I, you play C, E, G.  If you need help locating these notes, here is a Wikipedia diagram to help you:

To play II, you just play D, F, A.  As you can see, you get this chord by moving each note of the chord I one note upwards.  (Note: These two chords are played this way only for C major.  If your tune needs to be sung at a higher pitch, for instance, you might need to switch to another key, which is used here in the sense of set of notes.)

The chord III = [3-5-7]
By now you're getting the idea.  The third chord, also a triad, is played by shifting the previous chord up by one note.

The chords IV, V, VI and VII
these are all obtained exactly the same way: you shift the notes up, one note at a time.  All the chords should sound fairly familiar: major triads or minor triads, except for the last one, VII, which is a little different (and used more rarely), and is called a diminished triad.

The amazing thing is that most simple melodies can be harmonized using just these seven chords, and sometimes just 3 or 4 of them.  Of course, as you might expect, the harmony can be made richer and more satisfying by using additional chords.  But the fact remains: these are the chords to start with.

A common campfire song goes like this:

Oh the more we are together, together, together,
Oh the more we are together, the merrier we'll be!
For your friend is my friend, and my friend is your friend,
And your friend is their friend, and their friend is me!

Now, using the chords described above, and in any key: C, or G, or F, it doesn't matter, the chords, or the harmony can be described using the chords I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII as follows:

Oh the (V) more we are to-(I) gether, to- (V) gether, to-(I) gether,
Oh the (V) more we are to- (I) gether, the (V) merrier we'll  (I) be!
For (V) your friend is (I) my friend, and (V) my friend is (I) your friend,
And  (V) your friend is (I) their friend, and (V) their friend is (I) me!

(Ideally we should have the chords on a line by themselves, so that we can write the chord and the syllable one under the other, but this is good enough.  As you can see, we're getting away with just two chords, and the harmony is, honestly, a little dull.  A slight variation is to use VI instead of I at least once in line 3, but using I is really very satisfying.  (The song is also sung to the words Ach, du lieber Augustin.)

Puff the Magic Dragon, popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary, uses a few more interesting chords.  You might not be satisfied with this choice of harmony, in which case you're welcome to expand your repertoire as you like!

(I) Puff the magic (III) dragon,
(IV) lived by the (I) sea,
And (IV) frolicked in the (I) autumn (VI) mist
In the (II) land of Hon-A- (V) Lee
(VI) Little Jackie (III) Paper
(IV) loved that rascal (I) Puff,
And (V) brought him ships and (I) sealing (VI) wax,
and (IV) other (V) fancy (I) stuff!

You can sing this song without much trouble in C major, in which case
the chord I represents the C major triad,
the chord II represents D minor,
III represents E minor,
IV represents F major,
V represents G major, and
VI represents A minor.

A significant improvement would be to use D major instead of D minor.  Why is this?  D major uses a note that does not belong to C major at all, but rather to G major.  The harmony leaves C major to dwell in G major briefly, though the tune appears to remain in C major.  The note of C belongs to seven different keys, and with a little experience you can tell which of these keys the melody is actually in, or in which you want to consider it to be, and the harmony will be flavored accordingly.  (You could go completely bananas and consider the melody to hop over to A Flat major for that one note, but unfortunately your audience might walk out on you.)

The I, II, III notation is not well equipped to deal with travels into other (related) keys, unfortunately.  The usual approach is to indicate which key you've arrived in (such as, in this case, G major), and then use the chord as it would be written in that key.  For G major, the [D-F Sharp-A] chord is actually [5-7-9], which is V, which is followed by the chord [G-B-D], which is I is G major.  Then the tune returns to C.  So the system I have described is perfectly serviceable provided you do not leave the home key.

If the reader is interested, he or she can study up the so-called chords of the seventh.  There are seven of these as well:

I7 = [1-3-5-7]
II7 = [2-4-6-8]
III7 = [3-5-7-9]
IV7 = [4-6-8-10]
V7 = [5-7-9-11]
VI7 = [6-8-10-12]
VII7 = [7-9-11-13]

All of these will be familiar to most readers.  In a piano or orchestral piece the notes will get rearranged to give the best effect, of course; it is rare to have them sound in this particular arrangement (called closed position), and as was said earlier, the bass note is a huge deal, and is chosen very carefully.

V7 is by far the most familiar of these seventh chords, but the others are far from being uncommon.  Surprisingly, the last one, VII7, is the chord you get when you play a harmonica by sucking in your breath.  (It is also featured prominently in a number from The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky, which you have probably heard not too long ago.)

I hope this gets you started on your inquiries into how harmony works; you don't need to learn a million different chords, but just the various chords based on triads and sevenths, on the seven so-called degrees of the scale, 1, 2, 3, ... , 7.

Important Note: as you should have noticed, the chords I, II, III, ... and so on, are a major chord, a minor chord, another minor chord, then two major chords, and so on.  If your key happens to be a minor key, then I is a minor chord, II is a diminished chord, III is major chord, IV is a minor chord, V is usually altered to be a major chord, VI is major, and VII is diminished.  The chords of the seventh (that is, [1-3-5-7] and so on) are even more complicated, and students are not taken through the harmony of minor keys until they're unlikely to be confused by the details of chromatic notes, which is a reference to extra sharps and flats that are used in minor keys.

Arch, going to bed.