Class 7

Sorry I'm a little late posting for this class. And I promise we'll get to your compositions soon enough.

This class was a review of last week. We went over triads, seventh chords, and inversions. Seventh chords are tricky because you have to know the lingo that goes along with the symbols. Remember this:

• A plain 7 (like G⁷) refers to a dominant seventh -- a major triad with a minor 7th
• A minor 7 (like C#m⁷) refers to a minor triad with a minor 7th
• A major 7 (like Abmaj⁷) refers to a major triad with a major 7th
• A diminished 7th and half diminished 7th are similar except for the 7th (dim 7th has a dim 7th, a half dim has a minor 7th)
• Other 7th chords explicitly spell out the notes (like a Cm^maj7 -- a minor triad with a major 7)

We also discussed the diatonic chords (labeled with Roman numerals). Remember? They are:

I ii iii IV V vi vii°

So if we build diatonic triads on each of the notes of a major scale, we get a major 1, a minor 2, a minor 3, a major 4, a major 5, a minor 6, and a diminished 7.

Once we know what chords are diatonic, we can easily analyze a lot of music by determining what chords are being spelled and figuring out what inversion the chord is. Pretty easy, right? I hope so. We will soon see chords that are not entirely diatonic, and we will need to determine why they aren't diatonic and what function they serve. (For those of you who have heard the term functional harmony, that's what we will be learning.)

Thanks for your faithfulness and willingness to learn. God bless!

Josh

P.S. Homework coming soon.

Class 6

Chords. The foundation of modern Western music. I have not yet talked about another very important side of composing -- counterpoint -- but perhaps soon we can talk about it. In today's class we finished our study of chords (for now) by learning about inversion and seventh chords. Last week we studied triads -- chords of three notes. We learned how to spell major, minor, diminished, and augmented chords in what is called root position (or the snowman look). Because there are three notes, there are actually three different arrangements of the notes, meaning the order they appear. In an F major chord (F A C), we can arrange the notes three ways:

F A C (root position)
A C F (1st inversion)
C F A (2nd inversion)

When we change the order of notes, the important note sounds at the bottom, so that each of the three notes gets its turn at sounding the lowest. We talked about labeling the inversions in Roman numeral analysis (e.i., I⁶) and modern day chord writing (e.i., F/A).

We then discussed seventh chords, which have four notes. The main purpose of seventh chords is to operate as a dominant chord so that it leads your ear to the tonic. That means that a lot of seventh chords, serving as the dominant (5th scale degree), suggest a strong movement up a 4th. Can you figure out why? We'll talk about it. Anyway, there are several types of seventh chords. The more important are:

• Dominant seventh (e.i. C7, or C major minor 7) -- major chord with a minor 7th
• Major seventh (e.i. Cmaj7) -- major chord with a major 7th
• Minor seventh (e.i. Cm7) -- minor chord with a minor 7th
• Diminished seventh (e.i. Cº7th) -- diminished chord with a diminished 7th

There is also a half diminished seventh chord, and the symbol for that is the degree mark with a slash through it -- ^ø. The half diminished seventh chord is a diminished chord with a minor seventh.

If you are having difficulty with chords or have any questions, please email me (jstewart@bellevue.org). You need to understand chords in order to go on with this class. Melody lines are very important, and we will continue developing our melody writing skills, but chordal harmony is what gives life and color to melody, and we will spend a good deal of time in the next weeks harmonically analyzing songs and pieces.

Thanks for all your participation. We had a great time listening to everyone's ideas yesterday. God bless!

Josh

P.S. Here's a link to the homework.

Class 5

This class we reviewed all the intervals and began our adventure into the study of chords, specifically the triad (chords made with three notes). The triad could be called the foundation of modern Western music, and it is the triad that differentiates Western music from the East.

There are four main types of triadic chords: major, minor, diminished, and augmented. Major chords are diatonic, meaning they use the key signature of the root. Remember the root -- the bottom note of the basic triad. It defines the triad. To make a minor chord, you lower the middle note a half step. To make a diminished chord, you lower the middle and upper note a half step. To make an augmented chord, you raise the top note a half step. And that's it. Pretty simple.

Probably the only other often used variation of the triad is the suspended chord. We didn't talk about this in class, but the suspended chord is traditionally a passing chord, meaning that you leave it, or resolve it. To make a suspended chord, you raise the middle note a half step. Try it out on a piano. Once you play a suspended chord, your ears naturally want the middle note to lower back a half step to the major. Oh wait -- actually, you can suspend a minor chord too. It's just that you have to raise that middle note a whole step instead of a half step. Can you figure out why?

We also completed a melody in class. I had a good time hearing what you guys wrote. We're going to keep down that path until we get into some longer compositions. For now, just remember a few of these principles (not rules) of melody writing:

• Keep a majority of the intervals small (2nds or 3rds)
• If you have big leaps, make sure they agree with your ear
• Think big picture -- look at the shape of the melody and balance it
• Keep similar rhythm patterns unless you intentionally want to change the mood
• End on the tonic

Ok? Don't forget your composition assignment. Write an 8 or 16 measure melody with any time signature and key signature. Have fun, but keep in mind the principles we talked about. Thanks and God bless!

Josh

P.S. Here's a link to the homework.