Harmony. E-book. Formato PDF - 9780243661985

Harmony is the grammar of tone language.

The knowledge of Harmony is just as indispensable to anyone studying music, as the knowledge of grammar is to those who wish to gain more than a superficial understanding of a language.

Since the exercises in Harmony (from very simple pedagogical grounds) not only can be resolved into their elements, but, for the most part, must be a combination of separate elements, the student can easily see in them the preparation for composing; they are such indeed in no other sense than are the orthographical and grammatical exercises preparatory to writing poetry - not less elementary, not less indispensable.

All chords may be divided into two groups: -

1. Triad, or chord with three tones.

2. Sept chord, or chord with four tones.

Every triad consists of a fundamental tone, its third and its fifth. Every tone of the scale may be used as the fundamental of such a triad, thus a triad can be formed on any tone of the scale by adding its third and its fifth. If one uses only the tones which belong to a certain scale he will find that part of the triads have a major third and a perfect fifth, while others have a minor third and a perfect fifth. The triad on the VII degree of any scale, as well as on the II degree of the minor scale, always has a minor third and a diminished fifth. The difference between these triads does not concern us at present.