Harmonizing a melody

[jster]

What are some good books on how to harmonize a melody? And what are some good web sites?

I happened upon this little melody the other day and I was a bit mesmerized by how the melody strongly suggested a lot of the harmonization. But I couldn't work it all out. Probably because of my own short comings. (And I also started to wonder whether it was something I had heard before.) So I am looking for a good explanation for how that harmonization seemed so fitting. I am going to work more on trying to recover the harmony I heard. But surely composers who know their stuff must know a lot of theory/tricks/art for how to go from a melody to a harmony. And I am really interested in the most central/vanilla harmonization at the outset. Absolute basics that guys who write for Broadway musicals all know kind of stuff.

Here is what seems like a principle: If a phrase gets repeated exactly, typically it will have the same harmonization. Assuming that is a basic principle, I want to learn all the other basic principles.

(And if you want to focus it, among other things I want to know how often and under what circumstances does a melody call for a unique harmonization?)

And is there a good forum for songwriters? You don't see a lot of threads around here or on the jazz guitar site about songwriting.

Thanks in advance.

[Mike A]

Here are a couple of books that I found very helpful ...

Randy Felts, Reharmonization Techniques

Marc Sabatella, The Harmonic Language of Jazz Standards

[kingfisher]

To be honest, I don't think most pop song composers really understand much about music theory. Many of them write their songs while noodling on their instrument of choice, often a guitar or a piano. They usually choose the chords with which they are familiar. They use the I, the IV, and the V a lot, and occasionally substitute the relative minors.

I would disagree that the same phrase is always harmonized in the same way; often the harmony is changed subtly in order to provide variety. For example, substituting a relative minor for the I major chord, or substituting the iii minor for the I major.

Harmonic structures are largely driven by cadences. If you understand cadences, half the battle is won.

Another way that some composers use is to create a bass line that is contrapuntal to the melody line; this will often strongly suggest a harmonic structure.

You have to be a bit careful, because harmonic changes also produce what is known as a "harmonic rhythm." Generally speaking, infrequent chord changes suggest restfulness, whereas frequent chord changes may be interpreted by the ear as being more "restless."

[Music997]

The book that taught me how to harmonize is "Jazz Composition Theory and Practice".

You can find this book on Amazon.

It has an excellent section that helps you harmonize melodies.

You basically have to look at the melody notes and try to see what chords you could possibly form with them and then go through a number of chords to see which one sounds the best with that melody.

[jster]

Originally Posted by Mike A

Here are a couple of books that I found very helpful ...

Randy Felts, Reharmonization Techniques

Marc Sabatella, The Harmonic Language of Jazz Standards

I am really interested in this from the songwriter's point of view and thus I want to really steer clear of books that talk about reharmonization. My sense is that they are in a hurry to get to reharmonization and so often don't take harmonization that seriously.

[jster]

Originally Posted by kingfisher

To be honest, I don't think most pop song composers really understand much about music theory. Many of them write their songs while noodling on their instrument of choice, often a guitar or a piano. They usually choose the chords with which they are familiar. They use the I, the IV, and the V a lot, and occasionally substitute the relative minors.

I would disagree that the same phrase is always harmonized in the same way; often the harmony is changed subtly in order to provide variety. For example, substituting a relative minor for the I major chord, or substituting the iii minor for the I major.

Harmonic structures are largely driven by cadences. If you understand cadences, half the battle is won.

Another way that some composers use is to create a bass line that is contrapuntal to the melody line; this will often strongly suggest a harmonic structure.

You have to be a bit careful, because harmonic changes also produce what is known as a "harmonic rhythm." Generally speaking, infrequent chord changes suggest restfulness, whereas frequent chord changes may be interpreted by the ear as being more "restless."

Well, I am not thinking pop specifically. I am assuming that whatever method there is will be good for pop, jazz, classical, etc.

When you say cadences, what does that include besides the major and minor diatonic cycles ending at tonic?

Now I am so glad you mentioned the contrapuntal bass. That sounds really important. Is that how the classical composers would do it? Start with a melody than do the bass with counterpoint? Where can I go to get an explanation of that that is suitable for this songwriting purpose?

[jster]

Originally Posted by Music997

The book that taught me how to harmonize is "Jazz Composition Theory and Practice".

You can find this book on Amazon.

It has an excellent section that helps you harmonize melodies.

You basically have to look at the melody notes and try to see what chords you could possibly form with them and then go through a number of chords to see which one sounds the best with that melody.

I own a copy. I'll pull it out of storage next month.

[jster]

Thanks to all three of you. Perhaps I should make clear where I am coming from. For all intents and purposes I am writing jingles in different kinds of genres. I have written about 50 and have another 50-100 to go. And I am getting better and better at it. But the best ones are ones where I start with a melody. (In fact, the best ones are the ones where I start with a non-diatonic melody and/or a melody that has a two strong sections in two different keys.) I have lyrics already done. But now I want to know all the tricks of the trade. I'm much more interested in discussions of the role of melisma than, for example, reharmonization. I'm not interested in hip jazz anything for this project. But I do want to know all the fundamentals or at least all the fundamental (tricks!). And ways to get myself out of trouble. Sometimes I come up with great transitions between the (typically) two sections. But other times, I just can't get a second section that fits. But maybe there are some tricks? So maybe there is more besides pivot chords for getting from A to B?

Out of 50, I would say 15 are really good. But I want a higher success ratio for the next 50.

[jazzman1945]

Originally Posted by kingfisher

To be honest, I don't think most pop song composers really understand much about music theory. Many of them write their songs while noodling on their instrument of choice, often a guitar or a piano.

You're right, and even more than that, they do not know the notes! Therefore, to write and publish their tunes and harmonies are forced to turn to professional musicians.

[kingfisher]

Originally Posted by jster

Well, I am not thinking pop specifically. I am assuming that whatever method there is will be good for pop, jazz, classical, etc.

When you say cadences, what does that include besides the major and minor diatonic cycles ending at tonic?

Now I am so glad you mentioned the contrapuntal bass. That sounds really important. Is that how the classical composers would do it? Start with a melody than do the bass with counterpoint? Where can I go to get an explanation of that that is suitable for this songwriting purpose?

Cadences refer to the harmonic structure at the ends of musical phrases (to simplify it a bit). There is a perfect cadence, an authentic cadence, a half cadence, the plagal cadence, and various deceptive cadences. If you write a melody, it has places where phrases end, and then it has a place where the whole thing ends. Each of these places needs a cadence. You need to study what they are and how they are formed. I learned them from Piston's book, but maybe for jingles you could learn what you need to know from the internet.

The contrapuntal bass idea is an idea I've used a lot when composing choral music. I have no doubt that many composers over the years have used this way of harmonizing a melody. In order to do it, you need to know how to write counterpoint. It's pretty complicated, and well beyond the scope of this post, but I'll provide a couple of simple ideas. For two-part counterpoint, there are three ways in which the two lines could interact. They could move in opposite directions (contrary motion), one could move while the other stays on the same note, or they could move in the same direction (parallel motion). In general, contrary motion is strongest, because it emphasizes the "separateness" of the parts, which is an important concept in counterpoint. Parallel octaves and parallel fifths are to be avoided if it all possible. This is easy to do if you are only writing two-part counterpoint, but for writing, for example, four-part vocal harmonies it can prove to be difficult, because you have to avoid parallel octaves and fifths among ALL the different parts. It is also wise to avoid having any two parts move in the same direction toward a perfect fifth or an octave.

For jingles and such, I think the idea of cadences is a good place to start. From there you should learn how some chords naturally lead to others. For example, it's generally strong to move by a fourth or a fifth from one chord to the next. The II chord tends to lead to the V, and the V to the I, for example. The VI tends to lead to the II. For example, a common chord progression would start on I, go to VI, then to II, V, and I. That would be a well recognized series of chords for a simple musical phrase.

Obviously a forum like this is a suboptimal place to learn composition. And to be honest, I think your idea of trying to find "tricks of the trade" is pretty much doomed to failure. Good composition isn't a trick or series of tricks; it's generally years and years of study and practice, and a good understanding of music theory. Having said that, if it's jingles you're talking about, the principal requirements are the ability to craft a strong melody line and the ability to understand how chord progressions create what is known as "forward motion" toward a predictable cadence. These are the things that make music sound good to laypeople, and they don't really care whether you really understand theory at all, especially in the context of a jingle. Write a good melody, and then make the harmonization serve the melody, with the main purpose of driving the jingle forward to its rational conclusion. That's what makes a short piece of music like a jingle satisfying to the ear.

[jazzman1945]

Originally Posted by kingfisher

The contrapuntal bass idea is an idea I've used a lot when composing choral music. I have no doubt that many composers over the years have used this way of harmonizing a melody. In order to do it, you need to know how to write counterpoint.

You can start with a very simplified as follows:
Melody, harmony and bass to create a building where the bass - foundation, melody - the top floor, chords - intermediate floors.
Hence the first problem: set the tonality of the song, and key of the moment. Keys changing,functions and their steps - remain.So notes of the first, fourth and fifth steps of the key are the main key functions representatives in bass line.
Now you can try to put under Your tune each of the three notes - functions. Definitely not all of them will fit in the same way : something sounds better , something worse. Method of trial and error.
Bass - the function may vary for each note, but the standard - 1, 2 chords in the bar.
If You have found a suitable bass, it means that you've found only the suitable function. Each function contains a group of chords and their inversions, and substitutions.
To find them, You need to learn the rules of harmony.

[jster]

Originally Posted by jazzman1945

You can start with a very simplified as follows:
Melody, harmony and bass to create a building where the bass - foundation, melody - the top floor, chords - intermediate floors.
Hence the first problem: set the tonality of the song, and key of the moment. Keys changing,functions and their steps - remain.So notes of the first, fourth and fifth steps of the key are the main key functions representatives in bass line.
Now you can try to put under Your tune each of the three notes - functions. Definitely not all of them will fit in the same way : something sounds better , something worse. Method of trial and error.
Bass - the function may vary for each note, but the standard - 1, 2 chords in the bar.
If You have found a suitable bass, it means that you've found only the suitable function. Each function contains a group of chords and their inversions, and substitutions.
To find them, You need to learn the rules of harmony.

Great! I actually understand everything you said on only the second reading! I will try that. I was trying to focus on 7 chords at a time rather than just the I IV V.

Makes perfect sense!

But then there are all kinds of further things that I just don't know. For example, I desperately need to add the chick back up singers doing oos and ahhs on one tune. But I have no idea how to do that. Say it is on the last two bars V to I and there is a decent melody coming to a close and I want to put in a second line for the back up singers (Think Midnight Train to Georgia--except with genders reversed, anyway you get the idea.). But I don't have a clue what to do. Some transcribing wouldn't hurt. But I don't know anything about how vocal harmonies are constructed for Motown. Are the Pips singing chord tones?

[jazzman1945]

An Exemple:


http://www.mediafire.com/view/?up4olbfdq09wsmk

[jster]

Originally Posted by kingfisher

Cadences refer to the harmonic structure at the ends of musical phrases (to simplify it a bit). There is a perfect cadence, an authentic cadence, a half cadence, the plagal cadence, and various deceptive cadences. If you write a melody, it has places where phrases end, and then it has a place where the whole thing ends. Each of these places needs a cadence. You need to study what they are and how they are formed. I learned them from Piston's book, but maybe for jingles you could learn what you need to know from the internet.

The contrapuntal bass idea is an idea I've used a lot when composing choral music. I have no doubt that many composers over the years have used this way of harmonizing a melody. In order to do it, you need to know how to write counterpoint. It's pretty complicated, and well beyond the scope of this post, but I'll provide a couple of simple ideas. For two-part counterpoint, there are three ways in which the two lines could interact. They could move in opposite directions (contrary motion), one could move while the other stays on the same note, or they could move in the same direction (parallel motion). In general, contrary motion is strongest, because it emphasizes the "separateness" of the parts, which is an important concept in counterpoint. Parallel octaves and parallel fifths are to be avoided if it all possible. This is easy to do if you are only writing two-part counterpoint, but for writing, for example, four-part vocal harmonies it can prove to be difficult, because you have to avoid parallel octaves and fifths among ALL the different parts. It is also wise to avoid having any two parts move in the same direction toward a perfect fifth or an octave.

For jingles and such, I think the idea of cadences is a good place to start. From there you should learn how some chords naturally lead to others. For example, it's generally strong to move by a fourth or a fifth from one chord to the next. The II chord tends to lead to the V, and the V to the I, for example. The VI tends to lead to the II. For example, a common chord progression would start on I, go to VI, then to II, V, and I. That would be a well recognized series of chords for a simple musical phrase.

Obviously a forum like this is a suboptimal place to learn composition. And to be honest, I think your idea of trying to find "tricks of the trade" is pretty much doomed to failure. Good composition isn't a trick or series of tricks; it's generally years and years of study and practice, and a good understanding of music theory. Having said that, if it's jingles you're talking about, the principal requirements are the ability to craft a strong melody line and the ability to understand how chord progressions create what is known as "forward motion" toward a predictable cadence. These are the things that make music sound good to laypeople, and they don't really care whether you really understand theory at all, especially in the context of a jingle. Write a good melody, and then make the harmonization serve the melody, with the main purpose of driving the jingle forward to its rational conclusion. That's what makes a short piece of music like a jingle satisfying to the ear.

Yeah, these are very much jingles. More or less children's songs. I will gladly help myself to any chiché. But some of the best things are decidedly non diatonic. For example, maybe 1/5 of the tunes are rocked out with power chords in memorable albeit jarring ways. The jingles are just vehicles for annoyingly memorable melodies. That's the cruz of the project.

I am not very skilled in cadence talk. Six months ago there was a minor flare up on the guitar site about cadence definitions and it wasn't all that interesting. Wikipedia listed some 20 cadences. Should I learn all those? Including the Bulgarian? I know major and minor 251's and their extensions. I know a bit about subdominant minor chords. And I know what sounds catchy. But I'll add it to the short list. As with anything, the hard part is finding the good stuff to read.

[jster]

Originally Posted by jazzman1945

An Exemle:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?myfiles#up4olbfdq09wsmk

Link no good.