Harmony in Music

Music is fascinating. The more you know about it, the better you like it. We already know quite a bit about some parts of music. We know that this is a melody or tune. And we know that it's being played in rhythm. But now we add something besides melody and rhythm. What did we add to the music? Do you know? We added harmony. Groups of notes played at the same time to make the music more interesting. Harmony is made up of chords or groups of tones that sound pleasing together. Listen to this. Did you hear how the single notes went together to make a chord? Chords are built on scales. Here is the scale in the key of C. It's called C because it begins and ends on the note called C. Kathy will play the C scale for us. Again, so we can follow the notes. Perhaps you know the scale by the words do, re, mi, and so on. Let's all sing the scale together. Sometimes we number the notes of the scale like this. Then when we make a chord such as we give the chord the number of the note it is built on. Here is the one chord. Here is the four chord. And here is the five chord. With just these three chords we can make harmony for many different tunes. Listen. For that song, Cathy played the three notes of each chord close together, like this. Often in harmony, we spread out the notes in many interesting ways. These are all one chords in the key of C. Look at this one. Here's a C, but C is also the bottom or bass note of the chord. We'll sing again, and our harmony will be played on the piano. If you watch for the bass note of each chord, you'll be able to tell which chord is the harmony of our song. If the bass note is C, you'll know that the one chord is our harmony. If the bass note is F, you'll know we're using the four chord. And G in the bass means that the five chord is our harmony. All set? Then listen and watch. 1 1 1 5 5 1 1 1 5 1 1 1 1 5 5 1 1 1 5 1 4 4 1 So far, the harmony for our singing has been played on the piano. It's fun to sing harmony, too. Listen first to a melody we all know. Yes, we all know that melody, but listen to this one. That's harmony to help out the melody. Let's see what they sound like together. Yes, we can sing chords to make harmony just as we can play them on the piano. Let's all sing the song together. We can sing the melody. It's printed on these cards, and the chorus will sing in harmony. Ready? Wasn't that fun? Singing in harmony really uses the same chords that piano harmony uses. Now, while the chorus sings another song in harmony, Cathy will play bass notes in the key of C. See if you can tell which chords the singers are using. Four. One. Five. One. Yes, harmony does make music interesting. Let's try to remember some of the things we've learned about harmony. Harmony is made up of chords. Chords are built on the notes of the scale. They're given the number of the note on which they are built. The one chord in the key of C. The four chord. The five chord. These are the most important chords in harmony, but there are others. Listen to the two chord in C. And the six chord. These and other chords make harmony in the key of C. Music is played in other keys, too. Listen to the scale in F. Here is the one chord in F. Do you think you could find the four and five chords in F? Harmony is fun to sing, too. There's much more to learn about harmony. And the more we know about it, the more we'll like music. Music is made up of melody. and rhythm. But harmony helps make music more interesting and more fun.