Now that you have some guidelines in the form of stylistic rules, let’s begin developing the process for composing your own part-writing. How would you go about harmonizing the following melody in a four-part chorale style? Before you begin, look at the example and make a list of all the things you would need to do to harmonize this melody.
In no particular order, you will need to determine:
To this point in the course, we have discussed each of these, but you have spent most of your assignments analyzing existing examples rather than creating your own music.
And as a reminder, if you did not access our guide to part-writing in the last unit, you can find it here. Part-Writing Error Checklist and Guide We will continue referencing this for the rest of the unit, so you will probably want to print this out or open it in a separate window.
After looking at the list of concepts that are needed to harmonize a melody, you may find it daunting to combine so many concepts into a coherent piece of music. So instead of bringing in every nuance to start, I suggest that you focus on two major concepts that will act as your overarching guides for managing your melodic (horizontal) and harmonic (vertical) choices. In short, it is best to begin by focusing on what you should do rather than what you should not.
You may think that a “melody” that focuses on smooth resolutions is boring and limits creativity. And most people would agree with you! Remember that we are currently creating the framework that we will embellish at a later time. If you examine the framework of the houses in a neighborhood by stripping away the exterior and interior decorations, they will all look quite similar, and musical composition within a particular style is the same. Once we have a strong foundation, however, it allows for greater freedom as a composer adds non-chord tones, chord substitutions, and the many other techniques that make each piece of music unique.
With this in mind, your voices should prioritize smooth voice-leading that properly resolves tendency tones. Your bass line will likely have more leaps if you prioritize root-position chords, but the upper three voices should predominantly use stepwise motion. Any leaps should be followed by stepwise motion in the opposite direction; not only does this make for singable melodies, but it also minimizes the possibility of issues such as voice crossing and incorrect spacing.
In Unit 7a, we showed that by studying the voice-leading of a simple V (or V7) to I progression, we can propose a broad set of voice-leading rules that explain circle-of-fifths diatonicism. Specifically:
This is the beginning of a circle-of-fifths progression: a progression in which each chord root follows the circle of fifths.
Voice-leading governs the horizontal axis of music by shaping the melodies within each voice, but we need some basic rules to guide the vertical stacking of these melodies to make harmonies. A basic four-part chorale style employs the following four rules to act as general guidelines as a framework for combining voices.
Let’s use these two main concepts to try to harmonize the simple melody below with one harmony per pitch. Work through harmonizing the melody below, and take notes on each decision you have to make as your work through the process. If you get stuck, go back and look at the two major concepts to see if one of them gives you an idea how to proceed. And once you have finished, analyze your chorale to check for errors.
As you started, you hopefully realized that you had to make some important choices first such as choosing your key and cadences. By the end, you should have created a process similar to the following.
To harmonize a melody in a four-part chorale style, you should:
Please do not be afraid of failing! This is a normal and important part of the learning process, so rather than be disappointed, try focusing on the parts that you do not like, and then analyze them for errors. Your first attempts may sound clunky and unconvincing, but you should be able to use the analytical tools that you have developed thus far to find mistakes. Iteration is key.
As you move the list above, you should realize that a four note melody such as this leaves little room for development, so it is easiest to stick with a simple ideas. Because C is in prominent positions at the beginning and end of the example, use C major for your key. And since the melody ends on the tonic, an authentic cadence would be easiest. With those two decisions made, everything else begins to fall into place.
To keep this simple, let’s choose a perfect authentic cadence. This locks in the bass line for our last two notes, because we know that a PAC has a root position V and I chords at the end of the phrase. It is hopefully clear that the first pitch should start on the tonic chord to establish the key in our ear, which leaves only the second chord undetermined.
Because the chord that follows our undetermined chord is a dominant chord, it makes sense to use a pre-dominant chord, and the A in the melody would allow for either a ii chord or a IV chord. (If you are struggling to remember the standard diatonic chord progressions, please refer to Refer to Unit 7a.)Let’s choose an inverted ii chord to provide some variety.
You now can refer to the handout to see if we met some basic criteria:
We are now ready to add inner voices, and we can use our voicing and doubling rules from Unit 6b to establish a first chord.
And lastly, we can create the alto and tenor lines while observing the melodic guidelines from the handout.
Leading to…
Of note, you may have tried to jump to a D for the first beat of the second measure in the tenor line, but this creates an unnecessarily disjunct tenor part. As we studied in Unit 6b, the chordal fifth can be ommitted on a seventh chord if the root is doubled.
Therefore, if we use only the tools that we have developed thus far in the course, we can already create a simple four-part chorale.