15
Harmony and Counterpoint
In
This Chapter
◆
Understanding the differences—and similarities—between harmony and
counterpoint
◆
Creating pleasing background harmonies
◆
Using different chord voicings
◆
Composing interesting two-part counterpoint
◆
Learning effective voice leading technique
A song doesn’t have to be anything more than a melody and chords. Think of a
folk singer and her guitar, or a solo violinist accompanied by piano.
Melody and
chords are all you need. However, when you turn on the radio you don’t hear a
lot of solo folk singers. What you typically hear is a full arrangement, complete
with keyboards and bass and drums, background vocals, and other types of
instrumental backing.
Of course, these background vocals and instruments are doing nothing more
than playing the notes in the song’s chord progression.
But they also help to fill
out the sound and make the piece of music more interesting.
To fill out your songs, you need to add harmony parts. These harmony parts
can be either vocal or instrumental, and there can be any number of them.
What they do is simple: They follow separate lines within the underlying chord
progression, thus buttressing the harmonic structure of the song.
If you want to get really fancy, your backing parts can represent new and con-
trasting melodies when played against your original melody. When you create
this
type of complex harmony, it’s called
counterpoint;
it’s widely used in many
forms of classical music.
Chapter
Part 5:
Embellishing
188
Two Ways to Enhance a Melody
Two notes sounded together make a harmonic interval; three or more notes
sounded together make a chord; and two or more
melodies
sounded together
make counterpoint. Intervals and chords
are used to construct harmony; coun-
terpoint exists as separate melodic lines.
Another way to think of it is that harmony is a vertical (up and down) combina-
tion of notes, whereas counterpoint operates horizontally (side to side).
Harmony is vertical.
In reality, harmony and counterpoint are related concepts; both involve “vertical”
combinations of notes and both involve a “horizontal” movement of individual
voices or instruments. Still, harmony is more about singing or playing parts of a
chord; counterpoint is more about creating a second (or third or fourth) mel-
ody line—albeit one that adheres to the underlying harmonic structure.
Counterpoint is horizontal.
Technically, the study of harmony includes chords and chord progressions—basically,
anything that combines two or more notes simultaneously. Because we already
covered this basic material in Chapters 9 and 10, in this chapter we’re covering
the use of multiple voices or instruments
to enhance melodies, based on the
underlying harmonic structure (chord progression) of a piece of music.
Note
This chapter presents har-
mony and counterpoint
from a popular music per-
spective. Classical musi-
cians have a much
different—and more
formal—take on these
concepts.
Note
Chapter 15:
Harmony and Counterpoint
189
Living
in Harmony
Harmony is like playing chords behind a melody, only using other instruments
or voices. In fact, the art of adding chords to a melody is a harmonic exercise.
We add harmony parts to our music because harmony lends richness to a song.
It fills out a single melody line and reinforces the underlying chord structure.
A melody with backing harmonies is the difference between a solo vocalist and a
full chorus. It’s the difference between a folk singer with an acoustic guitar and
a pop singer with a group of backup vocalists. It’s the difference between a jazz
trio and a big band.
In other words, harmony makes music bigger.
You create harmony parts by using the notes in the underlying chord progres-
sion. If all you do is assign specific notes of a chord
to specific instruments or
voices, you’ve created harmony.
It doesn’t have to be much harder than that. Harmony parts, whether vocal or
instrumental, are typically less rhythmically complex than the main melody. It’s
not uncommon to find harmony parts consisting of whole notes or half notes
while the melody maintains a more complex rhythm.
Harmony parts can also mirror the rhythm of the melody; in these instances,
the harmony resembles classical counterpoint—which you’ll learn about later in
this chapter. Harmony can also be used to punctuate the melody,
fill in breaks
in the melody, and function as a kind of call-and-response mechanism. (Think
of the classic pop tune “Midnight Train to Georgia”; Gladys Knight is the call
and the Pips are the response—woo woo!)
In terms of harmonic complexity, you can have everything from a single accompa-
nying voice to choruses and string sections with two and three and more voices.
The more voices you have, the more challenging it is to create distinct harmony
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