Class note 20100121 A. Chord dictation Name 10 chords; the first chord is given and is always a TONIC chord.

Eeac statement will be played FOUR times. 1. 2. Write the chords: I, IV, ii, V after you hear the playing (as in bottom row of Example 1) Write out the melody in fasola in the course of listening (as in top row of Example 1) Example 1 Melody: Chords: d I m I d I s, I d I m I s I s I d. I s V

Example 2 shows one of the statements played in the dictation. Example 2

What to learn in the dictation? 1. You recognize the sonorities of the chords as a I, IV, ii, or V chord, and you can figure out the bass (currently inversion is not required). 2. You hear the melody, and combine what you recognize in 1, you gain a listening skill to hear both melody and harmony

Assignment: Continue to practice: play I IV ii V progressions in all major keys. For advanced students: play i VI iv V progression in all minor keys. (after the 7th week, every one has to learn this.

B.

Harmonization of a given melody In the previous harmonization exercise, we note that the given bass will tell us the chord, and from the chord label (basis), we can select the notes we want to put in the melody (a few principles have to be followed). In this exercise, a melody is given and we have to add the lower parts (alto, tenor and bass). As we might have noticed that a given note can be the root, the 3rd, or the 5th of a chord, e.g. the note Bb at the beginning of the following melody (Example 3) can be root of the tonic chord, 3rd of the submediant chord (G minor), or 5th of the subdominant chord (Eb major). In fact, this is true to all the notes in the melody. The first task prior to working out the harmonization, therefore, rests on how we find out the chords. Example 3

Use I, IV, ii, V (if the statement is a in major keys1) to harmonize the given melody, we may obtain several harmonizations; they are all rightful answers. Example 4

Suppose you have checked the soprano and the bass, and there is no parallel intervals (5th or 8ve), the adding of the inner parts poses little problem. As you see, the workouts in Example 4 actually look familiar to us; they look like what we learned in previous lessons adding a melody above a given bass and then the inner voices. The next examples show the workout of the inner voices, which is only a mechanical task, meanwhile, this mechanical task requires you to master how to control the movement of notes. Sense of direction and watch out for good melodies will be the guide.
1

Use only i, VI, iv, V in minor keys.

Example 5

Note: (i) (ii) (iii) C (2nd step) is doubled. The melody is given, and the selection of chord is ii, there is no room to follow the rule to double the 4th step. 5th is doubled instead of the root to show possibility of doubling Leading tone does not lead to tonic; play the alto melody to see the effect. The last chord contains all notes (Bb-D-F) in the tonic chord. In 5(a&b), the 5th is omitted because of voice leading.

Assignment: The 4 statements at the bottom of next page.