Approaches To Arranging: Developing Harmony – Part II
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Approaches To Arranging: Developing Harmony – Part II
In Part I of this article series, I demonstrated how primary triads of the major scale could be applied to a popular melody as functional harmony and how the triads of the rest of the major scale could be used to fill in the gaps to create some movement and colour. As a reminder, here is what we arrived at last time:
The audio for this can be found in part 1 http://www.pedjazz.com/approaches-to-arranging-developing-harmony-part-1/
Figure 2: Melody and harmony using triads from major scale harmony
The harmony in Figure 2 (above) sounds very much like a choral work, or such as you might find in church/hymnal music. This is all very well, but what if you want a more modern sounding harmony. You’ll notice that the melody notes are all chord tones of the triads used. Before we start using chord tensions, let us apply a very simple technique for making this sound a lot richer without doing much work at all. How? Remember that we harmonised the major scale using triads. As the name implies, a triad consists of three notes, i.e. two stacked thirds, but why stop at this? why stop at three notes?… Why indeed! Stack another third on top and you’ve created a “seventh” chord. These do not contain seven notes (that would be the major scale played harmonically, which is silly), rather the seven refers to the seventh interval that has been added. So harmonising the C major scale as before we get:
C maj 7 – D min 7 – E min 7 – F maj 7 – G (dominant) 7 – A min 7 – B 7b5 (or half-diminished)
(CΔ – Dm7 – Em7 – FΔ – G7 – Am7 – Bø)
So substituting the relevant seventh chords in place of the triads we arrive at a much fuller sounding harmony, shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Melody and harmony using seventh chords of the major scale
So, you think those Em7 chords in the 2nd and 3rd bars are mistakes? Well done for spotting them, but they are intentional alterations. Let me explain. There would be nothing wrong with using the seventh chord equivalents for the music in Figure 2, however, as you play the melody and develop a feel for the music’s direction, you may decide that you prefer the sound of one particular cadence rather than another in relation to the melody and its context. That is why there is no “right” or “wrong” way; only what feels “right” to you. The example in Figure 3 is what I preferred and is the way that I thought sounded good for me. My reasoning is as follows.
I decided to return to Em in the second bar rather than ending with G. The first two bars are more like part of a sentence; the whole 4 bars making the fuller phrase. Using the V chord (G) at the end of the second bar is like joining two subjects in a sentences with a big “AND” whereas going back to the Em lends a more subtle transition to the Dm in the next bar, replacing the “AND” with more of a “comma”; a gentle breath. Harmonising the G in the second bar with the V chord sounds okay with the triadic harmonies, but harmonised with the seventh chords of the major scale yields a dominant seventh, which is a major triad with a minor seventh. The interval between the third and the seventh is a tritone, which is very unstable, making this chord want to resolve much more strongly than when it was a lowly G major triad. Since the next chord is a Dm7, not the root, the Em7 would be a better choice in my opinion. This is something to bear in mind when expanding triads of a progression to their seventh chords – the V chord is always a dominant seventh. It’s a tasty chord but make sure that such a strong flavour isn’t too overpowering. A V – I progression is always a safe bet, but anything that follows a V chord that isn’t the tonic is worth checking.
The other alteration has a less dramatic effect – the C chord in the third bar is now Em7. There is nothing wrong with Dmin7 – B 7b5 – Cmaj7 – Amin7. In fact, it is a perfectly pleasing progression where the roots of the chords follow a descending thirds pattern, which is tasteful and melodic. So why go changing a good thing? Just for a different effect. I simply preferred a slightly different quality or motion for that bar. An easy way in which I play with chord progressions and ideas is to create different bass lines that would define the root notes of chords. For example, the first instance would be the descending thirds:
D – B – C – A
Now, instead of thirds, let’s consider fifths. Before jumping straight into a sequence of melodic fifth intervals, I considered the target note, i.e. the final note/chord, C. To ensure that I ended on that all important note, I worked backwards: a fifth above C is G (which is already there), then a fifth above G is D (which is already there).. and so on, giving the following familiar sequence (cycle of fifths):
C – G – D – A – E – B – F#
Since we worked backwards and ignoring the F# which isn’t part of the C major scale, this would be
B – E – A – D – G – C
which can now be put into place in the chord progression. We retain the Dmin7 at the beginning of the third bar and then use the chords that follow the root note progression above, giving us
Dm7 – B 7b5 – Em7 – Am7 – Dm7 – G7 – Cmaj7
It should now be clear why I opted for the Em7 in place of the Cmaj7 in the third bar. In addition, it also makes the last cadence a III – VI – II – V; a common sequence, particularly for turnarounds. I recommend playing both variations just to notice the subtle difference that it makes. There is no definitive method for creation, just ideas and various approaches. The example above is an approach that I like to use and is simple to implement.
I wouldn’t necessarily stop at this though, although it’s an improvement on just using the triads of the major scale, there are aspects that I would change. For example, the voicing of the Am7 chord in the third bar – three of the notes are repeated in the chord that follows it (Dm7). Admittedly this is not the best voicing, however it demonstrates a problem that can often be overlooked. A simple fix for this would be to alter the alto, or upper middle parts, i.e. the F and A in the treble clef – E and A or G would be more conventional, building the chord up from the chord tones of the minor seventh chord A, C, E, and G. The F (the major sixth of A) was erroneous in this passage since it clashes with the chord tones. It is not necessarily incorrect, rather that within the context of the passage, it stands out a little too much and is not in keeping with the rest of the music. If that was a desired effect or a happy accident then that’s great! Otherwise, it’s good to be aware of such occurrences.
Another easy fix for this would be to make the VI chord (Am7) a dominant, i.e. A7. This suddenly makes it want to resolve to the Dm7 chord much stronger. It is quite common to find the VI of these progressions played as a dominant chord or even the entire chord progression played using the (extended) dominants. More on this another time. For now, play both versions and note the difference in how they go to Dm7. The A7 is not a chord derived from the C major scale – it has a C# – yet it works so well. It is precisely because of this that it works well, the C# is out and right next to the D so it wants nothing more than to fall onto that D.
Staying at home with the notes from the C major scale and building the chords upon these lends the music quite a “safe” environment. It is secure and strong, but after a while, staying at home for too long can become predictable and one might describe it as unadventurous. To put the spice into the mix and really shake things up, it’s time to step outside of familiar C major scale territory and venture into tensions and begin our first steps in reharmonisation.. that is, we start reinventing the music. All this and more to follow in part III.
Hope you enjoyed this article and please feel free to leave a comment or ask any questions. I recommend reading through this a few times and trying some examples and ideas of your own. Start simple and build.
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About The Author
Art Bailey
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My apologies for the delay in getting this article up. I’ll try my best to make sure the next in the series follows without as much delay as this.
Thanks for your patience and I hope everyone enjoys the material here. Feel free to share ideas, thoughts and ask any questions in the forums.
Cheers
Thank you for this great article Art!
I definitely recommend anybody who wants to get into arranging and orchestration to follow Art’s articles. They are very informative and provide real life examples of how to apply all the theory parts into real music.