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This guide explains the basics of harmony in Western music. By 'Western music' I mean just about everything from the classical, pop, folk and jazz traditions, such as the music of Bach, Mozart, Scott Joplin, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Miles Davis, Beethoven and Stephen Foster, to name but a few. You might find these pages useful if you are interested in transcribing music from recordings, playing by ear, improvising a solo to a jazz or rock tune, or composing music yourself. I recommend that you read the guide in the order shown in the index, as the material in later pages assumes that you understand the concepts presented earlier.
Throughout the guide, you will see links inviting you to listen to something, like this: These are links to midi files - if your computer has sound capabilities, you should be able to listen to the musical examples by clicking the links. You need to hear the examples in order to understand the text, so if your computer does not have sound, you should find a polyphonic instrument (one that is capable of playing more than one note at the same time, like a piano or guitar - as opposed to a flute or saxophone, which are monophonic) and play the notes or chords that are described in the text. Please note that although it will only take you an hour or two to read the guide, it will take much longer to learn to hear and recognise the relationships between chords. That is a skill which only comes through many hours of practice, although I hope that this guide will help to speed up the learning process considerably. This guide is based on an hour long lecture I gave to readers of the usenet group rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic at a meeting in Chipping Norton, England in October 1999. The guide is in its first draft. If you would like to point out any errors or omissions, or make any other comments, please email me.
The guide is copyright - you are free to print it out to read offline, but please do not distribute any part of it without the copyright notice shown above.
Now, on to Part One of the Rough Guide to Harmony, or return to the index.
- Guy Snape, Cambridge, England, July 2000 |