Tag Archives: harmonic structure

How to build the harmonic structure of a piece (part 1)

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The Functional Harmony – Building chord progressions

Today we will start with the first of a series of lessons which will allow you to learn how to build the harmonic structure of a piece. For general information about this cycle of lessons, I suggest you visit the following page.

Today we will have an in-depth look at the subject.

After a brief introduction which will allow you to understand the aim of this cycle of lessons and how they are structured, we learn a fundamental thing:

Which is the role of each chord in major key.

You will see that each chord has its own multiple functions linked to the sense of movement and rest.
We will understand which funtion is necessary to make the first step and learn to build chord progressions without exerting your musical ear.

We say that instinct is essential in composition but if this does not come with knowledge, the risk is to be blinded.

Have a good lesson!

During the course of these lessons we will use the corresponding degrees of the scale. Let me remind you that the names of major scale degrees are:

I degree: tonic
II: supertonic
III: mediant
IV: subdominant
V: dominant
VI: submediant
VII: leading tone

Learning material of this lesson

5 videos 24 mins
1. What you will learn in these lessons 4m 28s
2. How do you build the harmonic structure of a piece? 2m 25s
3. Introducing functional harmony 3m 11s
4. Harmonic groups in major key and their characteristics 6m 29s
5. We look for harmonic groups at the keyboard – some observation on chords of various harmonic groups 8m 22s
+ 1 pdf files
... to continue this video lesson

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Do you want to learn how to build the harmonic structure of a musical piece?

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chiave-do5

Building the harmonic structure of a piece

I would like to present a new cycle of composition lessons which will soon start. Thanks to these lessons, you will finally learn to build the harmonic structure of a piece.

You will be able to put into practice all the notions of harmony and chords which you have learned so far and introduce your music!

Thanks to the help of more than 70 musical examples, you will be able to build a harmonic structure of any piece you want to write, either a song, piano piece, or even something more complexed.

These are some of the many topics which we will see in the lessons:

  1. A simple and logical method to build chord progressions
  2. Understand which is the role of each chord inside the key
  3. How to build harmonic progressionsusing the major scale and principal minor scales
  4. Which are the main features of the chords to vary in order to obtain balance and variety
  5. How and when to use inversions of chords in an effective way
  6. Introduction of new chords thanks to the use of altered degrees
  7. How to mix in an effective way chords of different minor scale
  8. We learn some general methods to build a harmonic structure in a piece
  9. How to differentiate harmony when the music piece is divided into different parts
  10. All the notions that you learn are essential in learning to harmonize a melody.

As you can see there is a multitude of material . This will be seen in a clear and simple way , with the help of more than 70 musical examples.

See you soon!