harmony explained
theoryHAR-moh-nee
A detailed exploration of how simultaneous pitches combine to create harmonic sound.
Harmony is the vertical dimension of music — the simultaneous sounding of different pitches to create chords and chord progressions. While melody moves horizontally through time, harmony provides depth and colour beneath it. The study of harmony encompasses consonance and dissonance, chord construction (triads, seventh chords, extended chords), voice leading, and harmonic function (tonic, dominant, subdominant). Tonal harmony, the system that governed Western music from roughly 1600 to 1900, organises chords around a central key using the major and minor scales. The circle of fifths maps the relationships between all twelve keys. Jazz harmony extends classical practice with added tensions, tritone substitutions, and modal interchange. Contemporary popular music often uses simpler harmonic vocabulary — many hit songs rely on just three or four chords — but the emotional effect of harmony remains powerful.